Darkness Prevails Ice Enraptures
by BabeSuperiour
Summary: Curiosity killed the cat, and curiosity is what ended up killing Kosuke as well. An unseen circumstance and her own bleeding heart, Rias Gremory brought this unfortunate boy into her peerage along with Issei. A Bishop holding a sub species of an average sacred gear who was somehow able to match Issei's potential was not what she had expected. Neither was the fact that he held two.
1. 11:34 pm

**A.N.** I really should be working on my other dxd story, but I've decided not to touch that for a minute. When i put out that first chapter, I was in no way prepared to finish that story, to be honest I might even have to re do that story all together. Until then though, this story has taken my muse, and I'm prepared to go run with this one.

* * *

Chapter 1: 11:34 pm

* * *

He had always prided himself on his intellect, and later on in life, his emotional maturity. In his ability to stay calm in the face of adversity. The way he always stood within the top 10% of his classes without ever studying or giving too much effort. The way he was able to rationalize his emotions before they took hold, and to detach himself from any situation in order to give a fair and just observation. The way he was able to solve puzzles far faster than 90% of his peers.

He wasn't so arrogant as to believe he was the best, but it was a _fact_ that he was one of the best.

Kosuke was an extremely smart child, not to mention well balanced.

Everyone had always praised him for his talent and wisdom; there was always a surplus of positive reinforcement for such traits as he grew up.

But even so, they had only scratched the surface. They had only seen his accomplishments in his short 16 years of living, not what he was fully capable of. No one had truly tested him and pushed him to his limits.

Tested him and pushed him to reveal what he could actually achieve; nothing in recent years had challenged him so.

Again he was an extremely smart child, he was always capable of understanding things and absorbing information at high speeds.

Anything that came as a surprise to him, didn't stay that way for long. No longer than a day would pass, and Kosuke would have filled his head with new information to make sense of what previously wasn't.

So, why do these things matter.

Because now he truly was being challenged, and Kosuke loved every second of it.

For the first time in a long time, he wasn't stunted by learning in a system that was tailored to those who were average and didn't meet the needs of the 10 percent who were exceptional. He wasn't being scoffed at and his input not taken too seriously due to his age.

He had just been presented with a problem that only his mind would hold him back.

It was a puzzle, and Kosuke loved a good puzzle.

* * *

Kosuke had noticed something wrong no more than a few days ago.

It wasn't the instinctual kind of wrong; for Kosuke relied far too much on logic and reasoning for him to develop a keen sense of instincts.

This was actually good though, because it was specifically logic and reasoning, as well as a bit of curiosity on his part that had alerted him in the first place.

What exactly was wrong escaped him, but it was something rather big he could tell.

And it had all started with one event.

Transferring 1st semester of his second year into Kuoh Academy.

His relatives wanted him to go to a prestigious school and not be held back by the public school system.

 _His_ motivations were more along the lines of:

'Wow, look at that male to female ratio, and foreign women as well.'

He was still a teenager in the throes of puberty, he could not be blamed for such single mindedness.

And true to the pamphlet, when he had arrived there was an overwhelming amount of girls attending.

And damn near all of them were cuties.

Like the president of the Kendo Club, Murayama, who shadowed him the first day of school.

* * *

"The Perverted Trio?" He questioned, the words coming out of his mouth slowly as he tried to wrap his head around such a ridiculous moniker.

Her face scrunched up in displeasure when he said that.

"Yeah, they're shameless perverts who scream to the heavens about their fantasies, peek in the women's locker rooms, and have absolutely no decency." Murayama bit out with clenched fists.

He followed her around another corner and continued down the hall while absorbing that information.

After some time they finally stopped in front of a door, what was apparently his first class of the day.

"I doubt they're that bad, they have to have some form of restraint." Kosuke said as he slid open the door to his class.

"Hey, you girls! Keep on looking, I'll violate you in my head!"

Kosuke swallowed roughly, unable to tear his eyes away from the scene.

"I'm sorry, I should've listened." Murayama would've smirked if she weren't outright disgusted by the display before them. "I'll trust your word next time."

* * *

The perverted trio who no girl ever wanted to be around.

Their antics and subsequent beatings were a source of amusement for the new transfer student, and he always kept his eyes peeled for any sightings of them.

Trouble followed them like a bad stench.

So while following him around one day, hoping to see some other ridiculous feat, Kosuke had found he wasn't the only one tailing the kid.

Koneko Toujo, a first year heralded throughout the school and treasured as their mascot, was seen tailing Issei Hyoudo around campus.

And that was quite a shocker. Why would she- why would _any_ girl follow this kid around.

It was a mystery, and boy did he love mysteries.

This had led him to following Issei once more, only afterschool this time.

Koneko was there again and it baffled him.

But what really took the cake was this Yuuma Amano girl.

After eavesdropping, which he was not proud of but had become quite a habit, he had gone home with a weird feeling stirring in his chest.

There were questions on top of questions stirring in his mind, and no matter how long he thought them over, nothing came of them.

That girl was not from any school in the area, so how did she know about Issei, and even if he was wrong in his previous assumption, knowing who he was, why would she approach the boy anyway?

Kosuke harbored no ill will against the kid, he found him entertaining, but his reputation precedes him. Every girl in the city knew who he was, and was well aware of his eccentricities.

No resolutions were found, and he would not have that.

This lead to of course, shadowing him once more- _goddamnit this shit was becoming a nasty habit_ \- while he was on his date.

Everything was going well, and from his spot among the trees, Kosuke was ready to call it a night and head home.

That was until she jumped on the fontain and transformed.

Wings- _black fucking wings, what the hell!_ \- grew from her back as her attire changed from modest blouse and skirt to skimpy strings that belonged more in a catalogue for BDSM and Dominatrixes than on a teenage girl.

'Only she isn't a teenage girl, is she.' Flew through Kosuke's head as he watched with a mixture of fear and worry.

He had to get out of there Right Fucking Now, and his mind all but screamed for his legs to take off.

A spear of light materialised in her hands as she spoke to Issei; he could not hear, but then again, he didn't really want to.

He just wanted to get out of their alive.

And yet, his body refused and his eyes stayed transfixed on the other boys face.

A wide range of emotions flickered across Issei's face, but anger, betrayal, and fear were the most prominent.

Kosuke bit his bottom lip as his mind was faced with turmoil; the logical side of him, the one he paid the most attention to and placed the most value upon, told him to leave immediately.

This _wasn't_ his concern, this _wasn't_ his battle, the woman _still_ hadn't noticed him.

Issei collapsed to the ground, his legs had lost the strength to keep him up; his will to fight leaving shortly after.

Kosuke couldn't help but see himself in the courtyard right now, he could easily see himself in the same situation and his conscious would not let him be.

Thoughts along the lines of 'What if that were _you_ faced with this woman who was about to kill you in cold blood, wouldn't _you_ want a passerby to help you out.' plagued hs mind, and finally emotion won over rationale.

A rare thing to happen for the boy; let it be known, he was the type to follow logic and facts, not to let his emotions get the better of him.

Sucking in a deep breath, hopefully not his last, Kosuke Yuri ran forward to go fight a fight that wasn't his, nor had very good chances of him coming out unscathed.

* * *

"It's time to die." She said, and Issei watched stunned as a large spear made of what appeared to be light flew from her hands.

Time slowed down considerably, and yet Issei couldn't summon the strength to move. All he could do was watch the spear inch closer and closer, painstakingly taking it's time.

He almost wished the spear would gut him already and spare him from the tortuous wait.

And then the spear was no more, or rather he wasn't looking at the spear anymore.

In front of his face now was the sight of some kid who wore the same uniform as him.

'What just happened?' His mind struggled to come to terms with what just happened.

And just as suddenly, Everything caught up to him. The pain of his back having been rolled out of the way of the spear lodged in the ground several feet away, the hammering of his heart in his chest, and most importantly…

"Dude, you have to run!" The kid above him shouted at his face, his eyes wide with fear and stealing glances at Yuuma who seemed confused.

Before Issei could respond, he found himself thrown roughly away once more, and once again looking off to the side where now two spears stuck into the cement.

The boy who had saved him, with blackish brown hair and blue eyes, scrambled to his feet and backpedaled away from Yuuma who hurled multiple spears at him.

Issei watched stunned at the kids impressive footwork as he sidestepped and dodged the large array of weapons hurled at him at a ridiculous pace.

"I don't know who the hell you are, but you're gonna regret trying to play the hero!" She suddenly yelled, a nasty snarl twisting her face as she lost her cool at the stranger who seemed to dodge her every attack.

At this point, Issei's mysterious saviour turned towards him and shouted out-

* * *

"What the hell are you doing, get the fuck out of here already!" Kosuke screamed harshly, eyes frantic and wide.

He wasn't given the chance to see if he would follow orders this time, as the girl- _No, she definitely wasn't human_ \- resumed her assault two fold.

The pressure had been high before, but now even more so, he noticed as he kept dodging the spears she hurled like javelins.

One at a time, then two, then three in both hands; Kosuke kept up with her furious pace. Letting his feet carry him out of harm's way, spinning and turning, changing direction randomly all in an effort to not get hit.

'Shit.' He cursed in his mind as he noticed that he was getting closer and closer to the spears that embedded themselves all around him. She was hurling the spears closer to each other, and at this rate, he would eventually step into the path of one rushing down.

This went on for two more minutes before she suddenly stopped.

Kosuke was grateful for the reprieve even if he was still wary of the girl.

He looked up to where she floated further above him, her wings keeping her afloat.

From what he could make of her facial expression, she seemed shocked, and dare he say impressed.

He watched in trepidation as a smile crossed her face and she raised her right arm before her.

Kosuke did not know what compelled him, or why he had suddenly developed a keen sense of instinct and intuition bordering on precognition, but he was so fucking glad he had listened to it.

His body, of its own accord, had jumped up as high as it could which was already impressive for most people. He had reached his ascent at the same time the girl above had closed her hand into a tight fist.

Horizontal spikes of light erupted like a network of pipes from each and every light spear on the ground; Kosuke found himself standing on top of one.

From here he could see what he estimated to be 200 spears sticking like rods out of the ground.

Looking up once more, he was treated to the sight of her mouth open agape.

He would have laughed if he didnt feel like he was gonna fall out from shock at any second. Honestly it was a miracle he was still standing, he wanted nothing more than to collapse instead of continuing this farce.

Luckily his pleads were answered, it just wasn't in the way he had hoped.

A spike from a spear just in front of him, shot out at an astounding speed and tore straight through his abdomen; ripping straight through the right half of his intestinal tract and shooting out of his back unhindered.

Blood rushed out of his wound like a tidal wave, spilling on the floor in disturbing amounts as he fell backwards.

The light spears dissipated as his back smashed into the concrete.

He felt no pain though.

It must have been due to the disbelief and fuckton of adrenaline coursing through his body, because even now he was coherent enough to realize that having his intestines blown apart was one of the worst pains imaginable.

Thank goodness for the small things.

Kosuke looked ahead with dull blue eyes as his murderer approached.

For some strange reason he just couldn't bring himself to be mad at her. Whether it was because he had rationalized such anger to be a waste of his precious time and energy, or he was just trying to look for the good in his situation, he couldn't tell.

The only thing that really occupied his mind was her looks.

She had kneeled down to get closer to him, and began to brush stray locks out of his face while placing a hand on his cheek.

Now that she was this close to him, Kosuke grudgingly admitted to her beauty. Silky black hair, and playful purple eyes made up her most prominent features, although he had noted her flawless skin and great body proportions.

If he was being honest, he was strangely glad that his killer was such a smoking hot babe.

Once she began to stroke his cheek and smile at him even further, he schooled his expression into one of boredom.

It was baffling, but he was tired from the fighting and he just wanted to die faster already so he could rest. This whole bleeding out thing was long, and he was in no way a patient man.

* * *

"You know it's a shame we couldn't have met under different circumstances," Raynare spoke as she saw the kid toss a bored look at her. "I would have loved to have you as a priest under my rule."

His expression didn't change much, but she could see he was paying attention even while slowly dying on the cold hard cement.

Raynare sighed heavily.

"Such a shame, we could've had some fun together."

Then without any warning, a spear of light burst forth in her hand, and she stabbed Issei through the back. The boy having rushed in an attempt to blindside her, but ultimately ending up choking on his own blood as his lungs filled with blood from a large wound slipping through his ribcage.

Kosuke turned his head over and attempted to make eye contact with his partner in death.

After hacking up some blood that had built up in his chest, Issei shot him a tired look.

"You dumbass, I told you to leave, now I wasted my life for nothing." He said weakly, surprisingly not as angry with the fact he was dying as he thought he would be.

After all there was so much in life that he had yet to see or accomplish, and yet in one night it had all been stripped from him.

He was too tired to give a damn anymore it would seem.

"Is that anyway to speak to the guy who didn't abandon you to fight on your own." He bit out with short laugh that ended abruptly as a violent cough racked his body and more blood splattered across the ground.

"You're too damn late." Even so, a smile made its way onto his face.

Raynare stood up and opened her mouth to say something, but ultimately decided not too. She wasn't so much of a bitch to ruin their little moment of bonding over eventual death.

Spreading her wings and taking off, Raynare left the scene content with a completed mission, but slightly put off at the casualty of the other boy.

Kosuke turned his attention to the stars in the sky, it was a beautiful night and there wasn't a single cloud in sight.

The leaves shifted the barest of amounts in the wind, and the sound of the fountain went on undisturbed. It was late at night; 11:34 pm when Kosuke Yuri died.

* * *

Kosuke had trouble sleeping ever since he was a small child. While it had gotten better when he grew up some more, he still found himself waking up an average of two to three times each night before his alarm told him to get out of bed and get ready for school.

It was because of this frequent waking up at night that he had developed the ability to become fully cognizant within seconds of waking up.

There had been multiple times in which, immediately upon being woken up, he would have full conversations with his parents as if he had been awake for hours.

This wasn't too important, until Kosuke woke up the next morning, fully aware of what had occurred just hours ago.

Within two seconds of opening his eyes and becoming conscious again, he had frowned considerably.

Last night had been real, he wouldn't even entertain the idea of it being some dream, because he was intimate with dreams and knew well and all that what happened was not the result of some dream.

Dreams had inconsistencies that were incredibly glaring once you woke up, but not in the least bit concerning while in the dream.

The events of late last night were far too real for that, not to mention, he had been fully coherent. That didn't happen in dreams unless you were lucid, and if you were lucid dreaming you would be aware of it.

Alas that wasn't his biggest concern at the moment.

What might you ask, is more important than literally dying in a park late at night after a supernatural encounter.

Waking up with another human being wrapped around your body with their legs entwined with yours, knowing damned well no one but you should be in the bed.

That was his most immediate concern.

And even more so when he looked and saw who it was.

Rias Gremory.

The most popular, rich, beautiful, and influential girl in the entire school.

She was a foreign red-haired beauty from europe, with a body that women would sell their souls to the devil for with zero hesitation.

Pulling the covers off of himself, Kosuke marveled at the fact that she was naked.

So was he, but that was an afterthought.

'There's absolutely no way I'll ever see _this_ again.'

Unashamed in the slightest bit, Kosuke swept his eyes across her nude form. Drinking in the sight of her creamy white, unblemished flesh, small waist that filtered out into a nice pair of hips. Perfect thighs, a great ass, and probably the largest pair of boobs he had ever seen.

'How are they still that perky? How do they hold that shape?' Kosuke wondered as he rose from bed and stepped into the middle of his room.

Her breasts were a study that would have Einstein and Newton grasping at old hairs with frustration.

With one final look and a sigh, Kosuke headed towards the shower.

He wasn't sure why, but it seemed like Rias' body temp ran higher than normal, and with her clinging onto him throughout the night, the absence of a fan, and the unopened window, Kosuke was slightly damp with sweat.

* * *

 **A.N.** Kosuke Yuri is my own OC, but he won't necessarily be stealing all the limelight. Both Issei and Kosuke will have their separate struggles and influence the story differently, even if the larger focus is on Kosuke.

I guess I should go ahead and say right now this story will be a little slow. It'll take long breaks in between arcs to give special time to further character development and explore relationships.

Not to say that their filler or anything, there extremely important to the story and if I'm being honest more important than the actual plot line. There'll be action, so don't get too discouraged, but there is a heavy emphasis on relationships and fleshing out characters.


	2. The Evergreen Forest Weeps

Chapter 2: The Evergreen Forest Weeps At Lunch

* * *

Padding through the halls silently, Kosuke became lost in his thoughts while his body shifted into autopilot.

'That girl from last night,' He thought as his tired gaze drifted to the clothes hamper in the corner of the bathroom.

Hanging off the edge was a blood soaked shirt that had dried and crusted up into something a tub of Hydrogen Peroxide and bleach couldn't fix.

Yeah, no way was last night a damn dream.

'What the hell was she.' He thought with a small amount of frustration, turning on the water faucet and waiting for it to warm up slightly. 'Some sort of Angel of Death?'

Reaching through his medicine cabinet and pulling out his toothbrush, Kosuke spread the toothpaste on and brought it to his mouth.

He didn't exactly have dark circles under his eyes, but the creases under his lower eyelids hinted at how tired he was. His eyes were red, and he couldn't bother raising them higher than halfway.

Spitting into the sink and washing his mouth out, Kosuke took a diagnostics check.

His body felt perfectly fine, no soreness, no pain to hint at the earlier battle. He was however, emotionally and mentally exhausted.

His eyes were tired and he wanted nothing more than to keep them shut, his body had no desire to sleep though.

Rummaging through the drawers of his sink, Kosuke ripped open a new toothbrush and set it on the counter for Rias to use later.

He had a couple spares in there for sleepovers or if he needed a change for some reason.

Stepping into the shower, Kosuke relaxed under the lukewarm water.

The sweat that had clung to his skin earlier washed off with ease. Squirting some Ivory soap onto a luffa, he lathered up in silence.

'Issei, Yuuma, and now Rias is a key player.' He rinsed off the soap and and let the water wash over his face. 'And we can't forget Koneko. She's a part of this too.'

The small window near the top of the wall showed that it was still fairly dark outside. He could spot the tops of trees and the sky. It was autumn, and even though he hadn't set his clock back for daylight savings yet, it was still dark out in the mornings.

Judging by the blue tint, it was dusk. Somewhere around five or six.

'Koneko and Rias have that club together in common. The Occult Research Club.' Reaching up to rub his hand through his hair, he was irritated to know there was still some blood caught in his scalp.

Shit, he was out of shampoo. He'd just have to make do with conditioner.

Scrubbing rigorously to the tune of birds chirping outside, Kosuke made sure every last spec of dirt and dried blood was gone before rinsing.

A cool breeze from the open window hit his flesh, but he didn't mind. It was strange but he was rather fond of the cold.

Putting his shoulder length hair under the running water, Dark blue eyes watched as darkish brown water rushed down the drain until the water pouring down his shoulders became clear again.

'So we have a club researching the supernatural, a girl who _is_ supernatural, and Issei caught in the middle of it.' He thought with the same neutral gaze he had adopted whenever he began to think.

'And now me, I'm caught in the middle of this now.' And suddenly the gravity of the situation hit him and his cool gaze quickly morphed into one of shock.

His eyes widened considerably and he had to put a hand against the wall to balance himself. His frame trembled and he found himself gulping in deep breaths as the shock finally set in.

He had fucking DIED last night. And now he was here, taking a shower with some _girl_ he had never shared words with sleeping in _his_ bed, while there was a whole world of supernatural beings he had to accept as reality.

The cascading water, and the symphony of birds outside set a scene that clashed brutally with the 16 year old boy who was a hair's breadth away from an existential crisis.

After a couple minutes of standing under the shower head, the cold water managed to calm him down and he shrugged off his earlier shock.

Turning off the water, Kosuke stepped out and began to towel dry.

He accepted what he knew and integrated it into his current beliefs. There was no use worrying over that now. Not to mention he didn't have enough information to come to a solid conclusion.

But his uninvited guest did.

Reaching into the cabinet underneath the sink, Kosuke pulled out the hairdryer and turned it on low. Cold air hit his head and tickled his scalp. After a few minutes he began combing through his tangled hair, his conditioner doing wonders to make the job easier.

After several minutes, he took a comb through his hair and swept his bangs out of the way.

Leaving the blow dryer on the counter for his guest, Kosuke looked in the mirror once more.

With his bangs out of his face, he could finally see his eyes again. Dark blue orbs peered lazily at the reflection in the mirror.

Turning around and stepping out into the hall with a towel wrapped around his waist, Kosuke had a cold drink of water before stepping back into his room.

The girl was still asleep.

The alarm on his nightstand read 5:54 am in neon green. She still had 30 minutes before she needed to wake up, but Kosuke wasn't exactly patient.

A flash of anger rushed through him at the thought of being dragged into all of this.

Surging forwards, Kosuke reached out to shake her awake, but one look at her face stopped him.

There were pronounced black circles under her eyes, she had obviously been through alot, and probably gotten even less sleep than he had.

His anger died down quickly and he scolded himself for getting so emotional.

Kosuke backed away, slipped on some boxers, and left the room.

He could wait 30 minutes.

* * *

Throwing his ruined shirt away, Kosuke took the bundle of clothes from the laundry hamper and threw them in the wash. He had seen Rias' lacy underwear and raised an eyebrow.

Who knew she wore that under her clothes each day.

Putting in the detergent, Kosuke closed the door and sorted through the settings.

He didn't have time to sort through darks and whites, so he just set the temp to cold, and put the washer on express wash.

The washer began spinning and the noise filled the empty house. The red 15 minute timer displayed stood out among the greyish blue tint of the house. There were no lights on, and it was still dark out.

Kosuke walked down the hall further and entered the kitchen.

Reaching through the cabinets on a premeditated path, Kosuke set down a bowl and reached for some oatmeal.

He tore open four packs of Maple and Brown Sugar, before pouring it into the bowl. He filled the bowl level to the oats with milk from the fridge, before throwing it in the microwave.

One minute and fifteen seconds later, and Kosuke devoured his food in about the same time it took to prepare.

Washing his bowl in the sink, he briefly considered making some for the girl too.

'No, I'll ask her which flavors she likes later.' He concluded once he placed his dishes in the dishwasher.

He returned to the laundry room where he leaned up against the washer and rested his eyes until the cycle ended.

Running through settings once more on the dryer and Kosuke closed the door and started the spin cycle.

The red display flashed 30 minutes against the washed out space it resided in. The boys feet led him back to his room.

6:17 am; the green numbers lit up her features as she lay on the bed. Kosuke admired her for a few seconds before turning around, and searching through his drawers for his other uniform.

His hair fell back into his face as he reached down to pull his pants on. Before he could reach up and brush his hair away, a pair of arms wrapped around his torso and trapped his arms to his sides.

"Good Morning." Was said airily into his ear, the speaker?

The same girl who had her tits buried into his back, with her chin resting on his right shoulder.

His breath hitched for a moment, before returning to normal.

"Good Morning, Rias." He responded softly, turning his head to the side to regard her, peering through the space between bangs he couldn't push out of his face.

She smiled magnificently, pearly white teeth flashed him.

"So how's your tummy?" She asked as she rubbed the spot where he had taken a fatal wound.

"It's fine now," He said as he gently broke away from he grasp and turned to face her. "I assume you're the one who did this."

"Yep, I held you close last night and used my magic to heal you." Even now he could see the dark circles under her eyes. "It's pretty taxing on its own, but healing both you _and_ Issei… You can't exactly blame me for falling asleep in your bed."

Magic, huh. So she was a supernatural entity as well.

She wasn't human, but then again, no human could achieve a body like that.

Kosuke just let out a long sigh, while pushing his hair out of his face.

"Let me show you the bathroom, I'm sure you want to take a bath."

* * *

"Yeah," She replied as she sent her new servant a grateful smile. "I would."

She followed after the boy as he led her down the hall, not without taking a glance at all the instruments strewn about his room.

As she walked sedately down the hall, she looked in awe at all the paintings blown up and framed along the walls. And on closer inspection she saw that they were all album covers.

"Kosuke," She called out once he opened the door to the bathroom. "You really like music, huh?"

"Yeah." Was the clipped response she got.

Cute, he was still too tired to entertain her. Oh well, she would have all the time in the world to get to know him further.

He was know hers, and their lives were bound together.

She couldn't see herself trading him for another either.

Rias bent forward to turn on the faucet; smirking when she felt his eyes on her backside.

"Here's a towel, and your clothes are in the dryer now, but I'll set them out for you when they're done." Rias turned back in surprise, he was very polite considering he didn't even know her other than what he must have heard in the 2 weeks he had been at this school. "They should be ready by the time you finish up."

Yep, she was already fond of the boy.

"Thank you for your hospitality." She said with as much sincerity as she could muster.

Kosuke just nodded his head before heading out and leaving her be.

"I hope he isn't always this standoffish." Rias said with a sgh before stepping into the shower.

* * *

True to his word, her clothes were folded up and sitting on top of the toilet lid. Rias found a toothbrush, toothpaste, and a blow dryer lying on the counter for her use.

She smile at that; he was very considerate. She almost started to feel bad for intruding.

Keyword; almost.

Now standing in front of the mirror, her hair dry and clothes on, Rias grumbled slightly as she looked closely at her face.

There were obvious dark circles under her eyes.

She couldn't go to school like this, but how to fix it.

Just then, Kosuke walked through the open door. His dark blue eyes, made even darker by the shadows of half opened eyelids, caught hers in the mirror before a look of understanding crossed his eyes.

He crouched down next to her and started rummaging through the cabinets looking for something. She watched him carefully to see if he would take a chance to peek up her skirt.

Not that he hadn't already seen everything she had to offer, but she was hoping to tease him if he did take a glance.

A box of makeup was offered to her while he stayed near the floor watching her lazily.

Rias got the hint and thanked him again; he left immediately afterwards, a grunt of acknowledgement all that he had to offer her.

"Meet me in the kitchen when you're done." He said softly before turning the corner and walking down the hallway.

In the quiet house, Rias could hear his footsteps clearly as he made his way to the kitchen.

Setting the makeup on the counter, Rias went through it all looking for concealer.

She had never put makeup on before, she never had any need for it, but it seemed simple enough to put on.

A small application under her eyes and all was well in hell.

The girl flashed herself a million watt smile and posed a couple times in the mirror.

Kosuke had easily cemented himself as a part of the peerage with his actions this morning alone. He would be a great addition to their little family.

It was kinda funny; the boy acted like he didn't care, but he was really in tune with other people. He was almost like Koneko in that sense, although something told her Kosuke was remarkably different at the same time.

Once thoughts of praise had ended and she returned to the present, a confused frown appeared on her face.

"Wait, why the hell does he have makeup underneath his sink?"

* * *

The kitchen just like the rest of the house, and just like outside, was dark. Enough blinds had been pulled back that the blue tint from outside transferred indoors.

Rias was fine with this though, she was a devil, they preferred the darkness compared to harsh bright lights.

Rias sat at the bar of the kitchen, eating oatmeal Kosuke had been all too kind in preparing for her.

Such a sweet boy.

Said boy, now fully dressed in his school uniform, leaned against the counter farther away from her, earbuds in and scrolling through his phone.

In between spoonfuls, Rias studied his appearance. He forewent his black blazer that everyone wore during the autumn and winter. Instead he stuck with the standard white long-sleeve button up. He left the shirt open and wore a deep navy blue shirt underneath, a curious purple necklace hung from his neck. His hair was a deep black starting at the roots and curiously enough, dark brown around the tips. In fact, looking closely, Rias could see quite a few strands throughout that changed from black to brown near the middle of its length, and kept lightning up to a golden brown reminiscent of an italian cappuccino. Had she not had the eyesight of a devil, she might have even mistaked it for dirty blonde. His hair sat around his shoulders and kissed his collarbones, while his bangs flowed around the sides of his face like a split waterfall. He had really nice eyes. The color she couldn't narrow down, but sat far on the dark end; somewhere past navy blue. And he had a rather dainty nose. With such features, she wondered if he had any noble European blood in his veins. He almost looked like a girl with such soft features, and it was only his indifferent expression and tight lipped frown that kept him from being labeled effeminate.

Thoughts like that led to curiosity, and Rias began to dress him up in her eyes. If he put his hair in a bun, put on a light dashing of makeup, and wore a skirt, he would easily be the envy of most girls in his class; probably getting his fair share of admirers.

"Like what you see?" He teased, and suddenly his lazy demeanor changed into something she saw on her Queen far too often.

Rias tensed up; she had been caught staring. She was more than a little embarrassed.

Her elbows were on the counter and she had unconsciously propped her head in her hands. A blush threatened to emerge on her face at the realization; she could only imagine the goofy look on her face. Thankfully she kept the blush back, but the quivering of her brows and the aversion of her eyes more than gave away her discomfort.

The boy laughed loudly while walking over; it was the kind of laugh that originated from the throat and forced you to tilt your head upwards. He grabbed her empty bowl with a relaxed smile on his face, mirthful blue eyes sought her own for but a moment, before he turned away and washed the dishes in the sink.

Rias let out a sigh and scolded herself for getting so flustered because someone had teased her.

The clinking of dishes was followed by the sound of plastic racks pushing forward and the click of the dishwasher closing.

The chair next to her slid backwards quietly, and Kosuke planted himself to her right. His smile had fallen again, but at least now he didn't look bored.

No he looked rather attentive now, and he had bothered to open his eyes a little wider. Rias watched as the shadow of his eyelids lifted and his blue eyes lightened considerably.

Leaning over with his elbows on the counter, hands clasped with his chin on his knuckles, Rias eyed the purple pendant dangling from his neck before he spoke.

"I live fairly close to school, so we still have a solid 20 minutes before we have to leave." Now turning his gaze towards her, Rias met his gaze with a serious look to match. "I want some answers."

"Of course." She said with a smirk that Kosuke could say was absolutely…

Devilish.

* * *

"Kosuke!" He heard a familiar voice exclaim.

Turning around with a pleasant smile, he responded in kind.

"Murayama!" Of course he didn't quite appreciate when she retorted with a "Quit messing around, I want to ask you something serious!", but he didnt let it bother him too much.

"So," He led on, a sparkle in his eyes that wasn't there this morning. "What's up? You're quite excited this morning."

Hands placed on his desk and leaning over to look him in the eye, Murayama didn't realize she had given him a golden opportunity to see her cleavage. He didn't look of course, he had more respect for his friend than that.

No to mention there were always better opportunities.

"So, Kosuke." She whispered conspiratorially. "What have you been up to. I saw you walking with Rias Gremory this morning."

Kosuke leaned back in his chair and kept the pleasant smile on his face while his eyes conveyed honesty.

"I got scouted for Rias' club, I'm officially a member of The ORC." He said with a little smugness in his tone, a mock arrogant grin on his face as he pretended to brag about his position.

"Oh, Ok. Congrats then, Kosuke." She said with an honest smile that showed she was truly happy for her friend. "And to think that you've only been at this school for a couple weeks."

Kosuke just laughed abashedly; inside though he was ashamed of himself for having to lie to her like that. Murayama was a nice girl, and he really enjoyed her company. He was most assuredly not proud of himself, but all the less, he was a great actor and knew when to put those skills to use.

She leaned against the back of the chair right behind her, and strook up a conversation about nothing too important. Kosuke enjoyed taking with her though, and entertained her mindless babbling, teasing her or inputting jokes every now and then, forcing laughs out of the girl time and time again.

After a short while, he scooted his chair back so that he could rise from his seat. His head tilted downward and his hair spilled into his face once more, hiding his visage from view. He took the short reprieve to discreetly take a look at Murayama's breasts, and goddamn if she wasn't busty!

Never breaking his motion or hinting at all to his ulterior motives, The Kendo Club Captain didn't pay the slightest bit of attention to him when he finally sat himself at the edge of the desk.

Leaning back with his palms behind him steadying his frame, Kosuke suddenly frowned when his new devil enhanced vision picked up on something.

* * *

"Hey, Murayama." He called out with a touch of concern.

"Yeah." She responded, watching him tip forward and look at her a little bit closer.

"Maybe you should get a hobby."

Murayama bliked at the random comment.

"I do have a hobby, Kendo." She answered more than a little confused at where he was going.

"But your parents and peers put a lot of pressure on you, dont they?" He asked with a small frown on his face and searching her eyes for answers.

She gulped slightly and thought about it.

He had hit it right on the mark actually, she was starting to feel the pressure of high expectations from her family and friends.

Murayama matched his frown as her body inched ever so slightly to close in on itself in defense.

"I still enjoy Kendo though." She said, cursing herself as she noticed how weak her voice sounded in comparison to earlier.

"But you don't nearly enjoy it as much as you used to, do you?" Kosuke replied, infuriating her with his ability to so easily see through her. "There's a lot of stress underneath the surface, huh."

"How would you know that?" She said uncomfortably.

Kosuke reached out quickly and plucked a strand of hair from her head, Murayama winced in response and glared at him.

"And just what was that for!" She hissed to the boy who didn't shirk away in fear like she had expected, but stayed perfectly calm and relaxed.

"You need another hobby, or something to vent your stress with, otherwise…" Kosuke held up a grey hair which Murayama stared at with shock. "Your brown hair will turn to grey, and I don't believe our pretty little Murayama would like that."

Murayama was at a lost for words.

The bell rang and everybody started heading towards there seats; Murayama stood still in surprise for a few seconds before she too headed to her seat.

As she was leaving to her seat further away from where Kosuke sat, the boy left her with some departing words.

"If you can't find another hobby, that's fine." His dark blue eyes held hers and she could see nothing but honesty in them. "You can always talk to me and vent, I don't mind. Call me whenever, I'll be happy to hear out a friend."

Murayama smiled as she resumed her trip to the other end of the room.

Kosuke was a really nice guy, she would have to hang out with him more.

* * *

Kosuke had meant every single word he had said. Part of his reasoning was his compassion and wanting to be of help, the other part was due to his own past.

He knew exactly what it felt like when the stakes started getting too high; how it felt to see everyones expectations of you grow higher with your every achievement not knowing how close you were to falling apart.

Not knowing yourself how burnt out and stressed you actually were, and not seeing the impending destruction.

He had crashed and burned horribly before, his family had been incredibly disappointed and he failed them time and time again. Incapable of getting his shit together or realizing just what was wrong with him.

It was the curse of Talent. When you finally hit the wall, you _really_ hit it.

It was a rut that was so incredibly difficult to get out of, because for the first time in your life, you had to struggle at something.

And boy was that a foreign concept.

No one understood what you were actually going through, and it was something you couldn't put into words because it was a brand new experience.

Kosuke had reached that point, and eventually brought himself out of it with a new understanding. He knew how hard it was, and he was well aware of how many talented people fell off after reaching that stage.

He always wished that someone had been around to help him through that stage, or at least prevent him from hitting it altogether.

He wanted to be that for Murayama.

Because she was his friend; because she was a talented kid teetering on the edge.

Just. Like. Him.

Murayama looked a little downtrodden, although she hid it well when he had rejected her request.

Kosuke would have none of that.

"Yeah, unfortunately I have club immediately after school ends."

"But," Murayama regained a small amount of hope in her eyes. "My lunch periods are always free, and I had been looking for something to fill the gap. If you can do it then, I'd love to practice Kendo with you."

Murayama brightened up immediately, and it made Kosuke feel a lot better.

"Although I'm a complete beginner, so please be patient with me."

A glint emerged from her eyes and a cocky grin made itself known.

"Of course, you can call me Murayama sensei from now on, and I'll show you the way of the sword."

She ended her tirade with a wave and a beaming smile before she made her way to the practice room, leaving Naruto alone with his thoughts for the time being.

He would not abandon her no matter how rough it got. And while it was a heavy promise to take for someone he didn't even know all that well, he simply couldn't afford to let her follow the same path he had.

He had the power to make something right, and by the 4 Satan, he would see it to the end.

'Why have I been getting so much more emotional lately?' He thought with a frown on his face as he headed to the Old School Building.

Was it because he was now a devil? Rias had explained to him that Devils were creatures of impulse.

Did that mean he would become less rationale?

That thought didn't sit well with him, and he grew anxious for his future.

The large evergreen trees that lined the small forest off to the side of the path passed by him in a blur.

Afterall, he was a kid who prided himself on his intellect and rationale, at this point it was a large part of his identity itself, and to think that it might be stripped away all the sudden.

His absolute worst fear was coming true, he was gonna lose himself!

Kosuke stumbled into the forest to go be weak without anyone seeing.

Steadying himself with his back leaning against the tree and raising his trembling hands closer to his face, Kosuke tried to calm his laboured breathing and erratic heartbeat to no avail.

Was there anything good about this new life he was supposedly living.

He had died, _Fucking Died_ , and no matter how much he lied to himself that he was fine, he was not _fucking_ fine.

His life was not his own anymore, he was slave to a teenage girl not much older than himself, who he - _no offense_ \- believed was nowhere near as smart or levelheaded as him.

Granted he hadn't gotten to know her, so his previous thoughts could be wrong, but he didn't give that idea too much hope.

His humanity along with his free will was gone, in the hands of another.

His hopes, his dreams, his aspirations and every single idea and experience he had ever entertained the thought of had instantly become null and void.

Kosuke barely felt it when he slid down the trunk and sat on the woodchip forest floor.

His breath quickened and he barely stopped himself from hyperventilating.

He knew he was a mess right now, but what could he do about it.

"Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck." He choked out softly as he trembled even harder at the evergrowing realizations.

Gone was the calm composed Kosuke; and the Charismatic, Teasing Kosuke was nowhere to be found.

In their place lied a 16 year old boy who was struggling to come to terms with such an earth shattering reality.

He no longer had purpose. It had been taken away. And while he couldn't exactly blame Rias for his predicament, his rationale still governing some of his thoughts, it didn't exactly change anything.

The life he had predicted and planned was gone.

He lacked Drive, Motivation, Passion. It was gone, all of it was gone!

It didn't matter anymore, did it?

He was a husk; could he even be called human anymore without those things guiding him?

What was the point in living if you were to walk around aimlessly, or worse, yield to someone else's will.

He might as well kill himself.

A teardrop made its descent down his right cheek.

Oh wait, He already was dead.

For the first time in years, his body once again went through the motions and shivered as if caught in a blizzard.

He partook in the act he swore to himself he would never again do since his parents died when he was 14.

He cried.

He cried long and hard, sobs tried their hardest to tear through his throat rendering it raw and causing a heavy weight to settle in his chest. A waterfall rivalling Niagara flooded down his cheeks and stained the wood chips below a darker red. Kosuke bit his bottom lip roughly in some cavalier attempt to remain quiet, and somehow it worked.

But what did it even matter.

He was alone.

The forest of evergreens formed a canopy with their branches that sunlight struggled to diffuse through. No animals, other than a few stray birds, lingered in this area.

A cool autumn breeze passed through hollow tree trunks and created wind tunnels in various parts. Red wood chips formed the topsoil which gave way to old knotty bark from tree trunks that rose high above the forest level. Leaves of a dark green had already begun the transformation and turned into beautiful shades of red, yellow, orange, and brown.

The forest was a quiet and beautiful place.

Kosuke, former boy now become devil, experienced a mental breakdown and wept for all it was worth.

* * *

 **A.N.** Those are the exact same thoughts that would run through my head were I put into the same situation, and even then, I doubt I'd handle it as well.

I'd probably end up locking myself in my room for a couple days where I tried to come to terms and eventually begin reassessing my beliefs, if I hadn't killed myself first.

Could you imagine the pope dedicating his entire being to Christ, only to one day be shown irrefutable proof that God was a myth. That when you died, there was no golden gates or cobblestone paths. Your consciousness just ceased to exist and you were nothing. Complete and utter annihilation.

What a slap to the face, to realize you had basically wasted your entire life and that all your past, present, and future actions amounted to shit.

What an earth shattering realization. People would lose their fucking minds, and I hope I was able to convey that accurately with Kosuke.

On a lighter note, please dont expect chapters to be this length all the time. I just thought this was a good place to stop, and nothing I wrote earlier seemed like a good break off point for the next chapter.

So yeah, expect the normal 12 pagers, or perhaps in time that number will increase.

Until next chapter.


	3. The Magician

**A.N.** Sorry this took so long to get out, I was slacking off quite a bit, so here's a longer chapter than usual.

* * *

Chapter 3: The Magician

* * *

Issei sat on a bench atop a hill he knew no one ever frequented.

It was here and with shaky fingers that he once more opened the letter he had received that morning.

 _Just for the record, last night wasn't a dream. Both you and Kosuke died by the hands of a Fallen Angel, the one you know as Raynare._

 _I healed you last night before heading off to do the same with Kosuke._

 _Im sure you have a lot of questions and I'll be more than happy to answer them._

 _I'll have someone fetch you after school and bring you to the old school building where my club is located._

 _Then I'll be able to answer your questions._

 _\- Rias Gremory_

"What the hell does she mean heal?" Issei spoke shakily, his voice coming out in a whisper of disbelief. "What's a Fallen Angel, and what the hell does she mean _I_ died?"

It had felt so real and Issei placed a hand on his chest were the spear of light had slipped through his ribcage and passed through his right lung.

The pain had been so real, and he couldn't rid his mind of the feeling of sticky red liquid under his face and the taste of copper welling up in his throat.

Issei closed his eyes and tilted his head backwards, letting his bangs fall into his face.

'And yet I saw the shirt I wore last night bloody and torn. I sat there and scrubbed blood and dirt out my hair this morning.' He couldn't refute it.

Even if he wanted to believe she was lying, the evidence was right there.

Opening his eyes again, he peeked through the narrow space between brown hair and watched as the cloud previously covering the sun finally passed; leaving the gift of unfiltered sunlight to bathe his form.

His skin prickled in irritation and he got up and walked down the hill heading back to class.

The folds of the letter were creased heavily; showing signs of wear from reading and filing away multiple times. Issei's hands followed a path now built into his muscle memory and folded the letter before securing it into his pocket once more.

With tired brown eyes, Issei gave a longing look to the bench basking in the sun.

To think it was only yesterday when he used to love standing under the sun and bathing in the warmth. Gaining energy from it like plants practicing photosynthesis.

Now it just pricked his skin and left him drained.

Issei turned around bitterly and continued on his path.

Walking into the shade between two neighboring buildings, he disappearing around the corner.

* * *

Kosuke sat with his right knee propping up his arm, while the left remained crossed.

He stared with a cool gaze at a spot not to far away from him, where a large patch of sunlight lit up part of the forest floor and enhanced the color of everything caught in its path.

Kosuke could see millions of dust particles floating in the shaft of light, and he idly noted the beauty.

Having watched the patch of sunlight slowly creep about for the past 15 minutes, he had finally calmed down and began thinking things through once more.

Or perhaps it was because he was currently listening to some jams on his phone that he regained a sound mind.

While he was a little ashamed of the purging of his system, he also realized that he had really needed that. And while he couldn't completely banish those scary thoughts, he had managed to rationalize everything and convince himself to wait until later in the day when he got some more information before doing anything rash.

What he couldn't shrug off to the side, he buried under layers of indifference until such things didn't even register with him.

It wasn't exactly healthy, but it had worked for him many times in the past.

With a sigh, he had decided to stop moping around and get up.

Wallowing in self pity was unproductive and didn't serve him well. It actually held him back, an that was something he really couldn't stand.

Turning around he walked back towards campus to find a bathroom.

He was sure he looked a mess, and he had an image to upkeep.

* * *

Kosuke hummed at his reflection in the mirror.

Thankfully his eyes werent puffy, so he could pass of the redness of his eyes as fatigue.

Rias wouldn't question it.

Turning on the sink and letting the water run as cold as it could get, he splashed the cold water on his face and dried up with paper towels nearby.

The cold water left him refreshed and alert; he left the bathroom feeling much better.

"Kosuke, right?" He heard his name called out.

Turning around his eyes widened when he saw Issei Hyoudo walking by with Kiba Yuuto next to him.

The sight of the other brought back memories of last night into both of their heads.

"Yeah, thats me." He recovered instantly.

Issei looked abash for a moment, smiling nervously.

"Sorry, yeah I never got your name last night." Then his eyes sought his and the brown haired boy looked at him with sincerity. "I never got the chance to thank you either. That wasn't your fight and yet you ran out to help me. I'm truly grateful for that."

"Hey man, I'm glad to help." Kosuke said with an honest smile, walking forward and taking his brother in death by the hand and cementing their friendship.

Maybe, sooner rather than later, they'd be able to look back on the incident in fondness.

"Kosuke Yuri, huh? We were wondering where you were." The blonde finally spoke up, continuing with his speech when he saw a confused look cross the kids face. "You didn't forget you were supposed to show up the Old School Building after school, did you?

Oh shit. He had forgotten.

You couldn't exactly blame him though, given his little episode in the forest earlier.

"Sorry about that, I had a lot on my mind and I guess I forgot about it." Kosuke looked off to the side feigning embarrassment and doing a rather good job of it.

Kiba just laughed a little with a good natured smile.

"Yeah, I'm not too surprised. It's some pretty heavy stuff isn't it?"

He didn't know how right he was.

"Lets just go, we've kept them waiting long enough." Kiba said as he walked down the hallway, Issei and Kosuke following behind.

* * *

"Smells like sweets." Kosuke commented as soon as the doors were opened to the dimly lit room.

Candles strategically placed provided the only amount of light in the room. Two black leather couches on either side of a coffee table sat in the middle of the room. A shower curtain took up half the wall on the right side of the room, while a couple ornate windows took up space against the left wall. At the very front was a large office desk that looked more like something the prime minister should sit at rather than the president of some high school club.

Returning his eyes to the couch he was reminded that Koneko was a part of their little group, when he saw her munching on some chocolate.

Walking forward he decided to make introductions.

"Hey, my names Kosuke," He said politely, standing near the girl in the leather seat and offering a hand out. "You're Koneko Toujo, right?"

She glanced at him in disinterest before staring down at her candy again.

"Yeah." And there she was eating again.

Kosuke lowered his hand with a strained smile, before his determination kicked in.

Plopping down on the couch next to her, Kosuke ignored the sigh that escaped her lips.

"Hey, think I can try some?" He attempted.

Koneko didn't even look at him this time; picking out another candy from the bag she had sitting on the coffee table.

Kosuke sighed at her obvious dismissal and his form slumped some in the couch.

'Making friends was never this hard.' He grouched within the confines of his mind.

"Here." Kosuke focused his gaze and looked down his nose where a lollipop was being thrust in his face.

"Thank you." Looking at her through the corner of his eyes, he saw her refusing to meet his gaze.

He smiled as he took the offered candy, and unwrapped it.

'How cute.' His eyes twinkled in amusement as he finally got the chocolate into his mouth.

"Wow!" He exclaimed, eyes wide as he stared at the sucker like it was a foreign object, hs upper body rising from the folds of the couch in obvious excitement.

"Koneko," He turned his entire focus onto the girl who looked a little nervous. "What is this, where d you get them, where can i get more."

Koneko swallowed after the barrage of questions, and tried to get her wits about her again.

"See's Candy." She said short and monotonous. "It's from America."

"Damn." His excitement died and he slumped into the couch once more.

He placed the candy back in his mouth and rolled it around his tongue, chewing slightly on the ends.

"There's a man down the street. I get them from him." Kosuke turned an interested eye on her, she finally met his gaze head on. "There's more options than this. I could show you."

"I'll take you up on that offer." Kosuke replied charmingly.

Koneko gave him a small smile before turning away.

"Kosuke Yuri, huh?" Tilting his head back and lifting his gaze, he locked eyes with the black haired, purple eyed girl that for an instant reminded him of his murderer, before he shook off such thoughts. "Im Akeno Himejima, pleasure to meet you."

She smiled at the end of he greeting; it was the kind where you ended up closing your eyes, and Kosuke marveled at the size of her chest for but a moment before he returned his gaze whee it should have been.

Didn't want her catching him, now did he.

"Pleased to meet you as well." And boy was he pleased, he was surrounded by some of the best looking girls around.

Maybe this whole devil thing wasn't too bad.

"I have cookies and tea, would you like any?"

Now that she mentioned it, there was a tray in her hand.

"What kind of cookies are we working with here?" He asked, his voice lowering along with his eyelids.

"Sugar." And with that one word, Akeno watched in amusement as his bored facade switched off and his eyes lit up like a child's.

"Send some my way." Akeno laughed slightly at the excitement visible on his face.

There new peerage members sure were lively.

It was then that the door opened and in walked Rias.

She sent a disarming grin as she passed him and sat on the desk to his left. Kosuke followed her with his eyes, his back hunching forward while his feet shifted on the ground.

Akeno frowned a little when she saw the kid who looked ready to bolt.

"Relax, will you. Nothing to be afraid of." Akeno leaned down and whispered into his ear.

He tensed even further; his back lowered more and she could see him gripping his pants roughly.

'Guess I didn't quite bury those feelings from earlier.' he thought bitterly as every glance towards Rias, who had been explaining the situation to an equally frightened Issei, brought even further feelings of dread into him.

Suddenly Akeno's arm snaked around his chest and pulled him back into the seat. The tray of tea and cookies she had been holding was placed into his lap, and Kosuke watched as her other arm wrapped around him.

Kosuke dipped his head forward and let his hair fall into his face. He was embarrassed and didn't want anyone to see.

It wasn't because Akeno had her larger than life boobs pressed against his upper back. No, he was actually rather grateful to be put into that situation, but his pride took a hit when he realized he had acted out enough for someone else to take action and try to calm him down.

Kosuke relaxed into her hold, and began eating some of the sugar cookies listening with half an ear to Rias' speil, which he had already gotten most of this morning, and Issei's reactions.

Damn if the kid wasn't taking it better than him.

But then again, he was only now getting this information. It wasn't like he had some time to come to terms with his new reality and realize the gravity of the situation.

Rias sent a grateful smile Akeno's way. From her place, resting her chin on his shoulder, Akeno responded in kind.

"Issei," Rias returned he attention to the one most out of the loop. "Do you understand so far?"

"Not really." He said honestly, struggling to wrap his head around this new world history and the existence of supernatural creatures. "This is some pretty overwhelming stuff."

"Ok, well I guess we always have time to talk this over in more detail." Rias said with a sigh and a light hearted smile. "For now though, onto your Sacred Gear."

Rias caught cold dark blue eyes from across the room before she once more turned to addressing Issei.

"Both you and Kosuke carry one, but we'll do yours first."

"I'm sorry, what's a Sacred Gear, exactly?" Issei asked.

"A very intense and unique power only found in a rare few," Akeno chriped from Kosuke's shoulder. "In fact the only people I've ever known to possess them are historical figures and such."

"So does that mean I'm hot shit?" Kosuke muttered under his breath.

Akeno struggled not to laugh.

It wouldn't do well for her to tell him Issei was more important than him and steal the kids drive.

"Sometimes," Rias picked up where her queen had left off. "This power is so uncontrollable that it becomes a threat to those in the underworld."

* * *

"Isn't this exciting, the two of you are one of us now."

Kosuke wasn't sure how to react when black wings sprouted out the backs of the four members before him, and looking to the side at a bewildered Issei, neither was he.

Then black wings sprouted from his shoulder blades, and Kosuke wanted to reject the new appendages.

"Now the way this works is, we grant power to humans for a price we both agree on, and then seal it with a pack."

Kosuke experimented with the wings on his back, pulling them in and out, flapping them softly, testing out the new additions while still paying attention to Rias' words.

After all, they hadn't gotten this far in their conversation that morning.

"Usually," She began again. "We'd have a messenger demon make the run, but seeing as you two are new to this, I think it would be helpful for you guys to see what goes into this job."

"Who knows," Rias' voice lowered as she prepared the hook that would drag Issei in. "If you do well, you may get to have a few servants of your own to help you out with anything you wish."

'An extended life span, and a peerage to call my own. The chance to do well and ascend to a much higher position.' Kosuke stopped listening as his thoughts started revolving around those few key pieces of information.

Unheard was the conversation between Issei and Rias, unseen were the curios stares of the devils not currently engaged in conversation, as his face went slack and his eyes widened.

"Hey," Kosuke spoke out in a low voice, focusing desperate eyes on the red haired king. "Is all of that true? The stuff about ranking up and gaining our own followers."

"Yeah," Issei added on as he too made eye contact with Rias. "You're not yanking my leg or anything, right?"

Rias smiled in amusement as the disbelief she could see in their eyes.

"Yes," She answered with an air of grace. "You can become a high class devil, just like me, and then you can gain your own little group of servants."

"I like the sound of that." Was Issei's response.

Kosukes was a bit harder to discern.

Rias watched as a look of understanding flashed across his eyes, before his lips began to quiver. Rias swallowed and looked on in concern when his shoulders shook and he leaned over, his hair falling around his face in a curtain and completely hiding it from view.

Waking forward, she hesitated to put a hand out and comfort him; while she couldn't hear any sobs, it was clear from his shoulders his frame was being racked with silent ones.

"Kosuke, I…" And she stopped, for what could she say.

It was then that the curtains parted and what Rias saw was not what she had been expecting. Gleeful eyes that managed to catch the small amount of light in the room and lighten up considerably, as well as a bright grin was what Rias was flashed with.

Rias was caught off guard with the sheer excitement coming from the kid, and her expression showed it.

"Rias." He grasped her by the shoulders and held his face just inches away from hers.

"Y-Yeah?"

Taking a deep breath to compose himself, Kosuke let his features relax into a softer smile with grateful eyes.

"This whole time, I had been scared. Absolutely fucking terrified of my new fate. I thought my life had been stolen from me, that all my hope and dreams would never see the light of day. That because I was a slave, I wouldn't have control over my own life anymore. But now," Rias frowned slightly as she considered things from his point of view; from what he had just told her, she would hate to be put in that situation too.

If that was the case, it would have been mercy to leave him dead in that park.

The image of one of her own- for even though it had been a day, she truly considered the boy a permanent member of her peerage- left to sit in a pool of blood having met his bad end all alone left her with a sick feeling in her stomach.

"But now," As he picked up where he left off, he unintentionally brought Rias out of her musings. "I have even more potential."

"What-"

"For the past few years I had been set on living a life reaching my fullest potential; aspiring to complete every project that caught even the slightest of my fancy. I had so many dreams, and the life I had envisioned was one achieving one after the other hoping I would reach the end."

Rias was caught off guard once more after hearing just how damned ambitious he was.

"But I knew it was unrealistic," His eyes turned to the side, and Rias realized he was pouring out his heart even more than ever; thus she poured every ounce of her being into listening to what he had to say.

Kosuke had her full and undivided attention; never had she ever focused so much on something in her life.

"Things get in the way, people change, resources run dry, interests die out, time goes on, and people die. I had what 60 maybe 70 years to somehow complete the long list of projects and childhood ambitions and dreams, all in some attempt to live a satisfactory life knowing damn well, in the darkest corners of my mind, that it was all pointless."

Now everyone in the room was giving him his undivided attention.

"But now, I have this incredibly long lifespan, a almost infinite source of resources, more time than I know what to do with, and all the opportunity to fulfill my numerous dreams."

"Rias, I thought you had fucked me over good."

Rias blinked.

"But I can't even begin to tell you how grateful I currently am." His now light blue expressive blue eyes filled with a fiery passion contrasted heavily with his normal cool dark blue eyes and expression. "You are the one responsible for giving me the opportunity of the lifetime."

"Thank you." He said it with all his heart, as he pulled her into a tight bear hug.

The kind his grandmother from his father's side would give him whenever she visited from Ireland.

Rias was absolutely floored, and couldn't even begin to formulate a response. However she did hear herself giving a shaky "your welcome" as she returned the hug with all she was worth.

Pulling back, an excited grin broke back on his face.

"I'm gonna be the next Leonardo Da Vinci!" He said excitedly before his smile fell and the possibilities began racing through his head even more. "No, even beyond that. I'll become the most talented man in the world, the kind that trumps Leo so much that it makes him look like a hobbyist."

"All the Arts, Music, Crafts, Film, Dance, Culture, Philosophy, Grace, Dance, all of it. I'm gonna master it." Akeno broke out in an amused smile seeing his tirade while Rias smiled encouragingly. "I shall be renowned throughout all realms as the greatest man to have lived."

"I'll live a life that causes the likes of Zeus to stew in jealousy and envy. My name will be on the tips of everyone's tongue."

"And a peerage, huh?" Issei perked up at that word, his mind going in completely different directions on how to treat that little privilege. "I'll gather a crowd of music lovers and we'll be known as the greatest music group to have existed. Creating tunes that range in sophistication that it makes Mozart look like a part time player of the pentatonic scale!"

Everyone broke into smiles or light laughs at the sheer excitement that Kosuke was radiating.

"Oh man I have so much damned energy." he said as his head tuned towards the window on the other end of the room. "I need to go burn this off."

Rias' grin quickly turned into one of shock when she saw the kid rush for the window.

"Is he about to-" Kiba never finished his sentence; he didn't need an answer anymore.

Kosuke threw open the window panes and leapt off the window sill; disappearing into the dark night outside.

"Oh shit." Issei blurted out as everyone rushed to the window.

Koneko hopped onto the ledge and was about to leap down and catch him, but everyone was surprised to see Kosuke with his wings out and gliding towards the edge of the forest.

Retracting his wings, the crowd watched blankly as he flipped his body forward, hit the ground rolling, and sprinted into the forest in one smooth motion.

"Fuck yeah!" He cried out as he disappeared into the forest below.

Koneko's shoulders slumped as her expression fell.

Then everyone burst into laughter.

* * *

"My agility, speed, dexterity, strength, all of it's increased."

Breathing in the cold night air, Kosuke took a minute to rest and enjoy the night lights.

He had sprinted across rooftops, leapt from high perches and rolled off 50 foot drops like it wasn't any more than 6. Pulling balancing tricks over thin beams below a water tank, Kosuke had practiced everything he learned from tumbling and acrobatic classes from 2 years back, as he dove, spun, flipped, tucked, and rolled around the intersecting network of pipes that fed water to places near and far.

"I should probably head back now." And with that declaration he dashed forward and leapt atop an adjacent building and hopped across rooftops on his way back to the clubroom.

* * *

Walking from the cover of the forest and into the clearing the old school building was situated within, Kosuke glanced upwards at the still open window with the lights still on in the room.

'I wonder if I could run up to the 3rd floor?'

No, even with his increased abilities, he probably couldn't do it. He had dabbled in parkour for a year or so when he was 13, so he knew how to, but that distance wasn't actually feasible.

Bringing his wings out, he sighed in dismay as he'd have to just fly up.

That wasn't very cool to be honest.

However it was with his wings out that he remembered a video he had seen in science class last year.

It had been about the evolution of flight,more specifically how you could still see evidence of it in modern times. Like the example of chicks running up the bark of trees, somehow defying gravity in their wake.

He couldn't remember the exact explanation, but it had been something about the force of the birds flapping wings that kept it pressed into the bark, so that they could run up safely.

Flapping the wings on his back a few beats, Kosuke grinned as he ran at the building and bounded up the wall.

It was strange feeling gravity press him towards the wall rather than down to the ground, but it worked and Kosuke was able to scale the 4 stories to his target.

Once he had climbed through the window, he was surprised to see only Akeno and Rias remaining.

"I'm back?" He called out hesitantly as he retracted his wings and stepped fully into the room.

"Oh good, there's still one thing we need to do." Rias said as she rose from the desk she had been sitting behind and walked towards him.

Akeno who had been standing behind her followed, and thus the two stood before him.

"I don't think you were paying attention when we tried this with Issei," He hadn't been, too caught up in his own head to acknowledge the conversation that had happened in front of him. "But were going to try calling out your sacred gear."

"Alright," He answered glancing between the two young women. "What do I do."

"Close your eyes and think of the part of your body that's the strongest. Then focus hard on that strength." Rias explained.

"Ok." Kosuke closed his eyes and began to contemplate.

Of course, this didn't last long, as he was already aware of what he held in his thoughts as strongest.

'The eyes that take in my surroundings and reflect the world, the mind; the tool with which I rationalize. My intellect is what's strongest. My intellect will never betray me.'

 _Be careful with that arrogance, after all, the mind is so easily deceived. The reality in your mind is tainted with the same filter as your eyes._

'Of course, I've already realized that. It's up to me to-' Kosuke's thoughts screeched to an immediate stop.

He had just realized that the little voice in his head that had responded, wasn't _his._

His eyes opened and Rias and Akeno took note of the changes.

His pupils wavered for but an instant before dilating extremely, to the point where his iris was naught but a sliver surrounding the obsidian darkness.

The shadows in the dimly lit room extended, growing larger and stretching further, as the light seemed to be sucked into the boys eyes themselves.

Dark blue eyes lightened up into a radiant amber, shining even further in contrast to the dark surroundings.

His eyes eerily resembled an annular eclipse.

"What is this?"

Rias mulled it around for a second before answering.

"Your Sacred Gear, Night Reflection. A power that gives you control over shadows, along with a few other related abilities." Rias explained.

"This isn't the normal manifestation though, is it." Akeno commented.

"No, this seems to be a sub species of the gear." She answered even though she had kept eye contact with Kosuke. "I hope to see what you can accomplish in the future."

Kosuke willed the shadows to revert to normal, and thus they did.

His command was absolute.

Dark blue eyes stared out at the pair before him.

"I do have to congratulate you." Akeno said with a smile. "It's not very often that newly reincarnated devils are able to manifest their sacred gear on the first attempt. You truly are talented."

There it was, that dreaded T word. It just rubbed him in all the wrong places. He was truly sick and tired of everyone labeling all his accomplishments as sheer _talent_.

However, he didn't let any of the irritation show except a small grunt of acknowledgement.

Akeno smiled in amusement at the kids obvious dismissal of her statement. Whether he was trying to come off as the cool modest type, or he was truly antagonistic towards the concept of talent, she didn't know.

It wasn't too important though.

"Well, Kosuke, I got these for you." Reaching inside a small bag she kept a her side, she pulled out a small box and presented it to him. "I was gonna explain the concept of magic to you myself, but I thought you might like to puzzle it out on your own for a little bit before coming to me. I had heard you like a good puzzle."

Kosuke took the box in his hands gingerly and absentmindedly thanked her.

How did she know he was fond of puzzles though? He hadn't told anyone that, and while that wasn't too important on its own, she stated that someone had told her.

He could ponder that a bit more later though.

Kosuke held the tin box in his hand for a couple seconds before removing the lid and checking inside.

"These are-"

* * *

"Tarot cards." Akeno finished having seen exactly where he was going.

"Huh." He said as he rolled his tongue in his mouth. "Um, aren't these for like, predicting the future and stuff."

"You, would think, yeah, but they aren't actually." She corrected him. "There more meant for things like self reflection and such."

She watched as his eyes widened ever so slightly at self reflection.

Seemed she was right in picking these out for him, this would capture his interest and do a lot more for him rather than if she just gave the same watered down version she was planning on giving Issei within the next week or so.

"Although in my case," Akeno took the cards from his hands and shuffled through them searching for one card specifically before placing it face down at the top of the stack and returning it to him; the boy looking at her quizzically throughout. "I used it to help me gain a better understanding of magic."

"Of course, I was a little girl back then, so it took me a while, but I think you can handle some of this stuff. Call it homework if you will."

"Ugh." Kosuke flinched at the thought of homework, but was excited nonetheless for the gift.

"Come to me tomorrow with any questions, and I'll tell you a bit more about it.

* * *

"The Magician, huh?" Kosuke muttered as he sat on his bed with the deck of cards laying off to the side.

The first card of the deck, the one Akeno had searched for and placed earlier, was the one he currently held.

 _The Magician is the representation of pure willpower. She takes all that is available to her and molds and transforms it to her desires. With her hand pointing to the ground and her wand pointing to the sky, she is the manifestation of the ancient phrase "as above so below" - meaning that earth reflects heaven, what is within is also without, the microcosm is the macrocosm. Naturally, this phrase is the origin of what is commonly understood as 'magic'._

Kosuke groaned loudly.

"Ok, no wonder it took Akeno so long to figure things out for herself." Kosuke grumbled under his breath before staring at the card some more.

'Alright, this is a problem, and your good at solving problems. It's just like algebra, simplify everything into terms you can understand and from there it's simple.' Kosuke assured himself, repeating the words in his head as he set out to work.

"Pure willpower; she takes all that is available to her and molds and transforms it to her desires."

Ok, that was easy enough to understand. Like taking a piece of clay and manipulating the resource into whatever shape you wished. That didn't seem too hard, he was used to making the most of the resources he was given.

It seemed safe to infer that there were two main parts to Magic. The reserve/ resource, all that is available to you, and manipulation, shaping things to your will.

' "as above so below" - meaning that earth reflects heaven, what is within is also without, the microcosm is the macrocosm.' Kosuke repeated three times over as he tried to figure out the meaning.

'Ok, let's skip the earth reflecting heaven.' Kosuke bit his lip as he mulled things over internally. 'What is within is also without.'

Maybe he should look up the definitions online and make sure he was going off the right track of thought.

Inside and outside, those were much easier terms to deal with.

'That leads us to, what is inside is also outside.' Kosuke frowned slightly as he tossed a couple ideas around in his head.

Looking up the terms Micro/ Macrocosm in his phone, Kosuke also simplified the sentence into terms he could digest.

'The characteristics of something smaller is the same as the whole entity.'

After staring at the words on his screen and tossing around ideas in his head for a few minutes, Kosuke sat up straighter.

Was this to be interpreted as a lack of separation. To look at things as all one and the same; unity rather than separate?

It certainly made sense; it was the best he cold come up with after taking a few more minutes to reflect.

"As above so below." Kosuke said softly as he stared at the card more intently.

'If that's the case, in terms of the magician, _she_ is who turns her surroundings into her desires; to reflect her reality and fantasy onto the world around her.' Kosuke's eyes widened as the thought began to earn more merit the longer he thought about it.

Was it because she refused to see the distinction between things, and instead thought of all as one? For if she had zero distinction between self and world, than she truly was the world at that point. Meaning that just like one manipulates their own lives through their actions or moves parts of their body, she was able to manipulate the world around her to match her desres.

Biting his lip slightly, the boy stared intently at his own arm.

'It's only because I view this arm as a part of my body that I'm able to manipulate it in complex patterns. If my brain separated the two, and I didnt believe my arm to be a part of me, than I wouldn't be able to move it in the slightest.'

Was that all there was too it? A simple change in perception and outlook.

'No.' He shook his head lightly as he reprimanded himself for the error of his thinking. 'For it's not so easy for one to completely rid oneself of the idea of self. That distinction is what keeps us alive in a sense.'

Even for Kosuke who prided himself on his intelligence and quickness to adapt, this way of thinking was something that he found difficult to wrap his head around.

"I think I've gotten the gist of this, I'll tell Akeno about my findings tomorrow. For now though," Kosuke sighed heavily before placing the card on top of the rest lying on his nightstand. "I need more information on this sacred gear."

Well in movies and books, people always talked about reflecting and looking deep within to learn more about the powers within them.

Sure it may have been fiction, but he was willing to test out the idea.

Lying down on his bed, Kosuke closed his eyes in focus. He shut out all distractions as best as he could, and repeated a mantra to keep his thoughts from drifting.

'Shadows and Darkness, I need to focus and delve deeper.'

'Deeper.'

' **Deeper.'**

' **Shadows and Darkne-'**

* * *

Rising from his bed, Kosuke frowned that he had fallen asleep in his attempt, but then he took a second to look around his room and began to have second thoughts.

Just like in the clubroom earlier, the shadows within his room had grown into a deep black that completely swallowed all light as well as a field of dimension.

Everything the blackness touched appeared flat and 2-D; the shadows had become that dark.

Turning his head to the side, Kosuke looked at his open window - which he hadn't left open before - and the patch of moonlight wafting through and lighting up some of his carpet.

What captured his attention the most was the moon in particular though.

It had gotten much, _much_ closer, now appearing 3 times its actual size.

The lights in the street were all out, he couldn't see any sign of light anywhere he looked. Nothing but the deep obsidian black and the grey tint that clung to everything like a heavy fog.

And yet despite the complete lack of lights, not a single star could be seen.

The curtains fluttered in the wind and his skin picked up on the coldness of the night.

It was a solid twenty degrees colder than what it was supposed to be.

'To think you managed to bring yourself here of your own accord."

Kosuke whipped his head toward the voice that originated from the corner of his room.

"Without advice, yet with intent. Your appearance isn't due to any mistake or outside force." Stepping out from the shadows slowly, Kosuke watched anxiously as someone made their appearance.

"I do have to commend you, your intellect and maturity is quite advanced for someone your age. It does catch my interest."

She was fairly small, somewhere around 4' 10" if his estimate was correct, and wore an all black dress that eerily resembled those worn by the daughters of nobility in victorian england. Her skin was quite pale, and seemed to glow dimly due to the heavy contrast between her skin, dress, and the shadows she had bathed herself in earlier; cloaking her presence until just now. Her hair was long, reaching her waist, and a deep black that refused to distinguish itself from the light swallowing void that was the shadows. The girl, he assumed to be 13 or so, had hauntingly dull eyes, her own expression managing to trump even Kosuke's cold indifference. Golden iris' trained their sights on him as he tried to no avail to school his expression.

"My name is Kosuke Yuri, and you are?" He said cautiously and naught more than a whisper; his voice carrying across the room nonetheless.

"Kusuri." She answered in a similar tone; her voice regal and mature, completely at odds with her appearance.

"So what is this exactly, I get that I succeed in," He searched for the right word to say, as he wasn't 100% aware of the situation. "Connecting(?) with the Sacred Gear. Is this the inside of it?"

Just how the hell did that work; what had he been transported inside of if that was the reality.

"In a sense." She answered with all the grace of a queen, staring up at the boy and making him feel like a child under her gaze; a complete turn around of the roles given. "We're currently in The Shadow Realm, and with the Sacred Gear, you gain access to this place. Think of it as a bridge of sorts, neither are exclusive."

"The Shadow Realm, you say?" The blue eyed boy closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath, dispelling some of the tension in his form from this new unknown. "Can you tell me some more about this place."

"As well as," Opening his eyes again, he finally managed to adopt his mask of cold indifference as dark blue eyes practically glowed in the darkness of the room. "Just who you are."

"I'll take the second question first." She stepped closer to him until she stood just two feet away, looking up at him through naturally long black eyelashes. "I'm the being sealed within the sacred gear, reminiscent of the dragon that resides within your friend's Sacred Gear."

Kosuke's eyes widened at that piece of information; his friend had a dragon sealed in him by proxy.

"However," She called attention back down on her, and Kosukes now clearly interested eyes held the girls vivid golden ones. "Unlike the Red Welsh Dragon, I can't supply you with power. All I can do is give you guidance and a helping hand, all you do with this Sacred Gear will ultimately rely on your own magical prowess and reservoir."

"While you hold a sub species of the gear, Night Reflection, which is no doubt superior to the original, your gear does not compare to the other child's in the slightest. It's not much better than having an average sacred gear and a tutor to help you out."

"I see." And truly he did, she was making it rather clear that he didn't have some convenient hax power like Issei apparently did, with some fucking dragon that grants its own power to the boy sealed within his arm to use whenever Issei so pleased.

No. Kosuke had to work for his strength, but he was fine with that.

He had accomplished quite a bit without having a teacher of his own, having experimented or sought out his own information for years now.

'But with a teacher willing to help me out.' The boy stared into her eyes even more, her dull unflinching gaze staring back at him.

Heaving a tired sigh, the boy smiled at her, before turning around and making his way for the bed.

Laying on his side, he patted the spot next to him.

"I have a lot of questions to ask, but for now I just want to know the basics, an introduction of sorts."

The girl glided across the floor with light steps that he couldn't even hear, until she crawled onto the bed next to him and sat with her legs crossed. Her black dress bunched around her and seemed to swallow up her legs and the space around her for almost a foot.

"There are a couple of powers all the users are known to use and we'll get to that later on, but the actual power given is the ability to manipulate shadows. This goes far beyond mere parlor tricks most of the other holders have been using though. Really, in your case, your imagination, creativity, and drive are your only real limits."

And thus, Kosuke settled in for a rather interesting lecture that night.

* * *

 **A.N.** It's been almost 3 weeks since I've posted this, so incredibly sorry. It wasn't even like I was ll that busy or anything, I was just procrastinating on this chapter. Updates aren't supposed to take this long; there supposed to be a week or two between, so sorry about that.

Good news, I've got a really long detailed Outline in a separate document for this story. Its written so far up to volume 7, although I've only sorted out the details for the first 2 volumes, and that already occupies 7 pages. I have a ton planned for this story, and I think you'll be really interested on how events pan out. You'll see some key differences midway through Asia's arc, and by the end of Risers Arc I think you'll all be surprised by what I've pulled.

So yeah stick around for the ride, you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Also, I love reviews. Whether it be about my writing style or how the story's going, I appreciate them greatly.


	4. The Distinction Secret To All

Chapter 4: The Distinction; Secret To All

* * *

He didn't know exactly how long he had been laying there, but he knew it had been a while. Just staring at the blades of his ceiling fan as they passed by.

It was rare when it took this long for him to pass between the realm of unconsciousness into awareness, but it did indeed happen from time to time.

A turning of his neck and the alarm clock that sat on his nightstand was brought into his field of view. The green led was large and hazy; it took a second for him to correct his vision and bring everything into focus.

"5:56." He said aloud, his voice soft as if he had lost it last night.

His turned his head to the ceiling fan once more; watching in a daze as the blades whizzed by him, and feeling the cool air from his standalone fan at the end of the bed blowing onto his bare chest.

The alarm began blaring; an old pop radio station that crackled due to a bad tuning played generic melodies over a subpar chord progression, while uninteresting lyrics and a singer's vocal chords drowned out by autotune sat atop the mix.

Kosuke opened his eyes again, completely unaware he had been on the verge of falling back under.

This wasn't like him.

His arm shot out and a muscle memory built over years of repetition found its way to the off switch without him even having to look. The sound shut off.

The window above his bed, right where his headboard would be if he had one, lay open. The black screen letting in the cold air and directing his blinds through a haphazard dance.

His room held the bluish grey tint of dusk, and just outside he could hear the chirping of birds not too far off.

A sigh broke past his dry lips, and Kosuke pushed himself up and out of bed with one motion.

Steady feet reached the ground and he began to make his way out of the room.

His footsteps made low thuds on the floor, before he fully woke up and consciously stopped it. Now his feet took him quietly down the hallway he had filled with musical paraphernalia. Album covers holding victorian era art had been blown up and framed, landscapes of differing themes filled the wallspace where most would keep family photos.

As he walked into the bathroom, a long yawn gave him pause.

Why the hell were his ribs so sore?

A grimace crossed Kosuke's face as he moved his arms around; he was feeling some massive strain around his shoulder blades.

Fuck.

Looks like it was going to be one of those mornings.

Without the least bit of hesitation, anxiety having been lost somewhere around the 15th time he had done this, the boy turned the faucet of his shower to the extreme side of cold.

Quicky brushing his teeth, and shedding his clothes, Kosuke pulled out a hair tie from the drawer, and tied his hair into a bun at the top of his head.

Stepping into the shower, his toes involuntarily curled at the temperature, and the boy stood with his back against the wall, as far away from the faucet as he could get.

His familiar friend apprehension made itself known and Kosuke tried to get a grip over his rising heartbeat.

Closing his eyes and sucking in a deep breath, Kosuke prepared himself for the task.

'3, 2, 1.' His feet carried him forward at two, and by one, he had made it under the stream.

His muscles contracted at the harsh cold, and his breath left him as he steadied himself. With his back under the water, and his hands against the wall, Kosuke remembered to breath, and soon enough began to adapt to the water.

The rest of his admittedly short shower continued in this fashion, before he eventually finished and got out.

Drying himself off, Kosuke pulled on some underwear before letting his hair loose. A quick comb through later, and he was good to go.

The goosebumps on his skin was rather pronounced, and while before he would have pulled on a sweater and sweatpants to warm up a bit before school, he had become more and more tolerant of the cold rather recently.

He had already been fond of the cold, but it felt more comforting this time around.

And there was something that told him it wasn't because he was now a devil.

Deep dark blue eyes surrounded by equally dark hair, caught themselves in the mirror.

He still had a solid 30 minutes before he needed to eat and leave.

'Ok,' Closing his eyes and focusing on them, he imagined the layout of the room he was in; and then sucking out a majority of the light and filling it with darkness.

Opening his eyes a mere three seconds later, he was a little shocked to finally see for himself the change in his own eyes.

The annular eclipse that it had now become; heavily dilated pupils barely revealed a sliver of amber gold irises.

The shadows in the room had grown almost _thicker_ in a sense, and the light had been dimmed considerably.

And yet, his eyesight was even better than normal.

Maybe his eyes really did suck in the light from his surroundings, and then used it as its own source to see.

Despite how well everything was going, however, he couldn't help shake the feeling something was off.

It was in the intangible, almost indescribable, sixth sense he had developed with the shadows. He could feel it in his lower back that they were different from last night.

How? He couldn't say, he just knew it as fact.

Was he actually in the Shadow Realm?

"Kusuri." He called out in a whisper, the words barely escaping his lips, but still finding their target.

As if she had always been there, which she clearly wasn't because he would surely have _noticed_ , the girl with black hair and golden eyes appeared sitting on his counter right next to him.

Her legs swung serenely; her black dress still as perfect as ever while her waist length black hair fell behind her for the most part.

She had her hands against the lip of the counter, and her attention was focused on the ground for a good few seconds before she turned her attention towards him.

She actually looked a bit more welcoming than yesterday.

Sure her eyes were still pretty dull, but at least they didn't look completely bored. Now they mirrored the same kind of feigned disinterest Koneko had mastered.

"No this wouldn't be it, to answer your question." She said with an even tone that carried a grace to it that no one in this day and age was really capable of producing anymore.

A secret lost long ago during the time of kings and queens.

To hear it from a girl who looked like she was still a year or two away from Koneko, a first year, it was a little offsetting.

Still, he acknowledged her words and matched her gaze with his own; silently conveying he wanted to hear more.

"You're still largely in the physical realm, think of this as a bridge of sorts, you can interact with the shadows here and manipulate them to your will, as well as other abilities, but if you want to go completely to the Shadow Realm, you would completely leave this plane of existence and reside there." Kosuke nodded as he went over the information in his head, and seeing this, Kusuri continued. "You can even enter the Shadow Realm with just a thought, but for the moment, you would need more experience. You can either meditate like last night, or connect via the shadows already here and present."

"Interesting." A small noise of thought made it past his mouth.

"I guess I should try that first then."

"Simply walk into any of the shadows and imagine yourself somewhere else, however, due note that you need to emerge from a shadow as well. So if the place you have in mind is well lit, we'll you'll have to get creative."

"Wait, but how will I know where another shadow is?"

"You'll see once you try it some." Her input ended after that last remark.

That… wasn't too helpful.

Doing as told, he stepped into the shadow closest to him, one that originated from the corner of the bathroom and reached upwards to the ceiling. It was easily large enough to stand in.

Once his body was fully enveloped, he was cut off from his sense of sight.

It was pitch black, and when he turned around, the bathroom and everything he could see beyond the window framed by darkness that was the shadow, had been sucked of all its saturation.

Everything was black and white.

"You should also know that while your in the shadows, no one can see you, but sound will travel, and others will still be able to sense you. While it will be muffled, you aren't completely suppressed by the shadows." Even though she said that, she was clearly making eye contact; perhaps because she was part of the sacred gear, the sight didn't apply to her. "You can also move much faster under the shadows. Call it shadow travel if you will; while it's not instantaneous, it's incredibly fast and you can cross extremely long distances in very short intervals of time."

'Ok.' He thought with a slight frown.

Turning around until he was completely faced with the darkness again, Kosuke concentrated on the abyss before him. His thoughts also revolving around the layout of his bathroom.

Then, as if a block in his system had been lifted, he was suddenly able to see more irregular shaped windows appear before him. Outside of those were views of different parts of his bathroom.

Hell, through the one on his left he could actually see the shadow he had occupied, and sure enough, he was completely invisible.

Walking the short distance to one of the other windows, Kosuke stepped out into another part of the bathroom.

"Neat." he commented lowly as a a thought came to him.

Picking up a brush from the counter, Kosuke tossed it towards one of the walls before him. Stepping backwards into a shadow the same time the brush left his hand, Kosuke turned his body and walked towards the window he knew it was approaching. The second his body fully emerged from the confines of the inky blackness behind him, the saturation in the room was returned, and Kosuke watched the brush soar towards him.

"Damn, that was fast." He said in awe as he caught the handle of the object in his hand.

It hadn't moved in any noticeable way since he stepped into the first shadow.

Tossing the brush into the air, Kosuke stepped into the shadow he previously came from and reached out through another window. Grabbing the brush, gravity took its hold over his body, and kosuke flipped forward from the ceiling and landed in a crouch on the floor again. Leaning back slightly, Kosuke lobbed it again at the opposite wall, jumping backwards into the shadow he already knew was there.

'I wonder how far I can travel?' Was the strange thought that popped into his head just a second before he fell through.

Rolling over his shoulder upon the exit, he let his momentum carry him further until he slipped back onto his feet with zero effort on his part.

It was then that he noticed the carpet under his bare feet and the unfamiliar surroundings.

Well they weren't unfamiliar exactly, as he had been here before, but he was supposed to be in his bathroom.

 _Not_ the Occult Research Club Room.

"Kosuke?" His body turned around out of sheer reflex and he froze when he met the girl who called him out.

He wasn't sure exactly why she had decided to shower here, but Rias stood off to the side of the room in all her naked glory, clearly having just finished in the bath.

His body tensed up hard, and his eyes widened in shock.

He didn't know if it was because he was tired the last time, but when he had taken the chance to look at Rias' body just the morning before, he obviously hadn't looked hard enough, because with the way his eyes drunk in her every detail, it was as if he had never seen the sight before.

Within 5 seconds he was positively _straining_ against his boxers. Rias' eyes trailed down.

'Fuck fuck fuck, I need to get out of here. Back to the bathroom, back to the bathroom, back to the-'

If you had asked Rias what had become of the boy, she would say that it seemed like his form darkened. Like the outline of his body had become incredibly pronounced and right after, starting from his back and moving towards the front, his body had been… pulled out of existence?

All Kosuke saw was an immediate change of his surroundings, enough that it disoriented him. The brush from earlier lay on the floor, and for the first time, Kusuri actually looked surprised.

"Wow, you were able to shadow travel without the use of shadows, that's quite impressive, I didn't think you'd figure it out for a few days at least." Kusuri praised him.

After taking a moment to expel himself of the embarrassment, Kosuke was able to get a handle on himself again.

"So that's what that was." He commented lightly.

Closing his eyes, he envisioned his bedroom, and upon opening them, he fully expected to arrive.

Only he was still in the bathroom, boxers and all while Kusuri watched him with an inquisitive stare.

"Was it a fluke?" He called out with uncertainty.

Damn, looks like it was. He'd just have to practice it some more.

Turning around and heading towards his room to throw on some clothes, Kosuke planned to get to school the correct way around.

Kusuri hopped down the counter, reached for the brush on the floor, returned it to the counter, and disappeared into the shadows.

Leaving the bathroom empty once more.

* * *

It wasn't just talent that made him good at what he did, it was also loads of prior experience in other activities that made things much easier for him.

She could see it in the way he walked and held himself. His footwork was great, and while undisciplined by any real school of teaching, was still effective in its own right.

It was enough to keep him out of the way of most swings, and what he couldn't dodge he had slowly began to work on too. Taking minor grazes and overall fixing his form so that they became less and less.

While he lost all his spars- considering he was just a rookie two sessions in- he was doing fairly well for himself.

Murayama could even see a noticeable increase in his speed from yesterday.

And yet, despite all this, a frown had crossed her face as she watched her friend sparring with some of the other girls and learning the overall basics.

He held less grace than before. Or rather, not grace, but his movements seemed just a little more haphazard, lazy if you will.

He was also a little more distracted that day, for whatever reason.

Murayama winced a little when she saw him fail to guard correctly and get a smack to the wrist.

"I think that's good enough for the day." She called out, and watched as all the girls began to put equipment away and headed towards the showers.

Kosuke dragged his feet, a complete 180 to the soft footsteps he tended to take, and plopped himself onto a bench against the wall.

You could see the fatigue in his bones; he just slumped against the wall, his entire form seemed limp.

Murayama walked over and sat next to him, rather than get out the gym herself.

"Hey, so we're only gonna meet every other day starting next week, the kendo club I mean." She informed him, not quite willing to ask what his problem was yet.

A grunt of acknowledgement barely made it past his lips, and he wasn't even looking in her direction.

Murayama huffed out a sigh that blew away stray hairs in her face, before turning her whole body to the side and facing her friend.

* * *

"Hey, are you ok," He heard her call out, his eyes still set on the rafters above them, set high into the ceiling where darkness coalesced and he swore he could see Kusuri swinging her feet off one of the high beams. "You look kinda drained today?"

He was, he felt a little sluggish, and he honestly wanted nothing more than to collapse and knock out for a while.

"I'm fine." He finally said, his head dipping and his hair spilling in his face.

Murayama looked at him skeptically as he pushed his hair out of the way and peered at her through the sides of his eyes.

"Hey so how's the hobby thing going?" He asked suddenly, hoping that maybe she'd get distracted and drop the interrogation that was sure to start.

Really, he appreciated her concern but he was fine, just slightly tired. No cause for concern.

Murayama realized fully what he was trying to do, but decided to entertain him.

"I'll be honest, not too well." Kosuke blinked at that.

His eyes opened up a little wider in attention, and he turned his torso towards her a bit more. Leaning in slightly, his voice lowered a bit more as he trained a curios gaze on her.

"Well, have you ever tried-

"Oh sorry, am I interrupting something." Murayama immediately turned to the voice, a teasing smirk had been sent her way.

Looking back at the boy in front of her, she saw him laugh and shake his head slightly.

Murayama sighed and slouched in her seat a bit when Kosuke finally stood up.

"Katase! Always ruining the moment, Damn, two more minutes and your friend surely would have fallen for my charm." He may have sounded irritated but the large grin on his face more than gave him away.

"Whatever, man." She rolled her shoulder and the smile fell from her lips; a tight line taking its place. "Anyways, the locker room is all yours. The girls are done in there."

Sure enough as he walked near, the rest of the girls from the Kendo Team began passing him by, offering pleasantries as they made their way out.

Only 10 minutes remained of lunch.

"Hm, I don't have to tell you not to peep on me right." He said with a smirk on his face as he neared the door at the end of the auditorium, throwing a look behind him and over his shoulder as he tried to leave with some parting shots. "I know you can't resist the temptation to sneak a glance, but I do ask you to exercise some constraint."

"As if I wanna see your scrawny ass naked." Katase called out, Murayama laughing in the background.

"As if you know what I look like under the school uniform, my physique is quite a bit better than what you credit me for." The words were followed by the sound of the door shutting.

"You know, now I'm a little interested in seeing if there's any truth to that."

* * *

"Akeno." He called out.

School had ended, and so had the club meeting. Rias had assigned both him and Issei to work on forming pacts, and while Issei had gotten straight to it, Kosuke had decided to put it off in favor of asking Akeno some questions.

"Hmm?" One look at the cards in his hand, the tarot cards he had made sure to grab from his dresser before shadow traveling to school, and she already knew what he was going to ask about.

"I thought you'd take a little while longer." Akeno said with a little surprise before a small pleased smile made itself known. "But I'm glad your so eager about this. Just how far did you get?"

This morning, after his little incident in the clubroom which Rias tried to dismiss, but the slight tremble of her lips whenever she looked at him betrayed the fact she was trying to hide her mirth, and during breaks in between classes, he had managed to get through the meanings of most of the cards.

"I got through most, mind if we sit?"

Akeno led the way and took a seat on the leather couch before them; Kosuke followed and sunk into the cool seat next to her.

Kosuke handed her back the cards, and watched as she shuffled them a few times, obviously looking for one in particular.

Finally, she picked out the card she thought as most important, and put it up for him to see; The Magician. Behind it, he could still see her kind eyes and warm smile.

"So what were you able to gain from this one?" She asked.

Turning his body in the chair to face her, Kosuke mulled over everything he had considered last night, and tried to summarize it all.

"Unity, that's all it is. A mindset, to think of the world as not separated from the body or mind, but as all three being a single entity."

"There is no such thing as oneself," Akeno led with an ever growing smile on her face.

"As oneself is just world." Kosuke completed.

"Yes, rid yourself of the distinction between self and world, and merge the two concepts; that is magic." Akeno explained , leaning forward a bit more in poorly veiled excitement.

"So, have you done it? I mean, I'm just struggling to wrap my head around the concept, is it really possible to just forget 'self', it sounds like a whole slew of problems would arise." Kosuke went on with a troubled look on his face.

Akeno laughed, and for the smallest of moments, Kosuke's eyes had been drawn to her bouncing chest, before bringing his eyes back to her face.

Luckily her eyes had been closed, so she hadn't caught him, otherwise he was sure she would've teased him for such.

"You're definitely right about that, I wouldn't necessarily say it's impossible to rid yourself completely of the distinction, but what we do is use the concept as a building block to work from. The stronger a devils magical power becomes, it's only due to separating himself further from "The Distinction"; which is of course the distinction between self and world."

"If you were to complete rid yourself of the distinction, you would be able to do absolutely everything. Let's just be glad that hasn't come to pass."

Kosuke closed his eyes and hummed at the thought.

Surely if someone were ever able to fully harness that kind of potential, and truly become 'world' well, as far as he knew, that surpassed even god himself.

That was pretty scary.

Opening his eyes again, he looked around the room a bit before his attention was drawn back to her.

Akeno had reached out and grasped his hand and linked their fingers together. Bringing it up some, she reached out with her other hand and began to play with the joinery.

It was almost like they were dating, and Kosuke wouldn't mind that one too much.

"In the same way I'm using my hand to manipulate yours," She started off, grasping his hand in both of hers and finally raising her eyes from the task and catching his, she went on to explain the purpose. "I'm practicing magic. I'm using the resources available to me, and exerting my influence on the world around me."

"That is magic in its most basic form, and the more you start thinking of everyday interactions as 'magic' the sooner you'll gain a grasp for the mental energies involved and start performing the kind of magic everyone thinks of when considering sorcery and other such concepts."

"Hey Akeno," Taking her advice at heart, he took the chance to play with her hands, manipulating the individual digits, and moving them this way and that, molding them to his desires and forging a bond with the concept of 'magic'. "If it's all right there for anyone to use, why do we have to become devils in order to use magic. Couldn't a well trained human do exactly the same thing?"

Kosuke blinked a bit in surprise when he felt his control being overridden and Akeno's hand begin to take control over his once more. Repeating patterns and manipulating his fingers at a faster pace than he had earlier, he watched in a daze the almost mechanical path her fingers traced.

"Well you see, when humans are reincarnated into devils, they're mind is the only thing that really changes; other than the wings of course. The strength, dexterity, agility, power, and speed, all of that was there from the beginning. It's just that humans have limiters on their brains."

"In the same way that we can only access about 10% of our brain at a time?" He asked.

"Exactly." Akeno smiled at how easily he understood. "When we're reincarnated, the limiters in our brains are lifted some, and right now we can access about 25%. It's like a computer, if you update the system, everything upgrades and you get faster speeds as well as a few new other abilities."

"So magic is one of the new abilities?" He inquired

"Not necessarily," Akeno went on to explain. "Magic isn't much more than manipulating energy."

"Like we were talking about before, it's more or less distinguishing yourself further and further away from "the distinction" that leads to magic. In simple terms, it's all just in your head. Everyone can do it, and chinese monks toe the line a bit, but all it is is brainpower."

"You asked why ordinary humans can't do the same, and it's precisely those limiters that separate devils and humans. I couldn't do the things I'm able to know if I didn't have somewhere around 30% of brain power at my disposal."

"Wait." Furrowing his brows the slightest amount, he quickly matched her pace and passed it, taking back control of the little game they played with their hands and putting the pressure on her.

"I thought you said 25%?"

"That's where we start at yes," Akeno began to slowly put up a resistance so that Kosuke couldn't as easily push her fingers this way and that. "But the more you grow, the more pressure is on you to achieve even more. The human body grows through adversity and stress, and the more stress we go through as devils, the more and more of our minds are unlocked."

"Hmm." Kosuke felt Akeno start to push back, and so gave her the upper hand, and watched silently for the next couple minutes as she played with their entwined fingers.

"Kosuke," She stopped playing with his hand, and instead gripped his wrist. "I want you to close your eyes and focus on the palm of your hand."

Akeno saw him comply, and almost immediately she saw a small disturbance in the air just above his palm.

That was good, he had a really strong grasp over manipulating his own energy, but she needed more.

"Right here," With her thumb she traced a small circle into the palm of his hand. "Imagine a light flowing down your arms, and gathering at this spot."

Kosuke made a small grunt of acknowledgement before focusing on the task.

It took a little while longer, about 20 seconds, but Kosuke managed to get a stable manifestation where she needed it.

"Open your eyes now."

Above his hand was a pale grey orb, fog like wisps trapped within the invisible barrier floated around almost struggling to get out, but Kosuke kept firm control over it. A small fog did start escaping out the bottom, flowing down his palms and reaching for the ground like the gas that came from dry ice.

"It took you a bit, but even so, it must have been because you were trying to get a clear image and keep it stable. This is a very good manifestation, Kosuke."

"Thank you."

The clubroom was barely illuminated by the sparse few candles lit within. The walls were cloaked by darkness, and the curtains had been pulled over the windows. The rooms only two occupants sat across from one another, knees touching and heads close together. Both were entranced by the orb of magic one had manifested.

It was 11:34pm, and Kosuke Yuri was seriously starting to like this devil business.

* * *

 **A.N.** If you've ever seen Konosuba, good anime can't recommend it enough, in season two while he was exploring that cave with aqua, he used this power called "Lurk" to escape leaving aqua all by her lonesome. It was right when they realized Aqua's aura was attracting monsters. But anyways, that "lurk" is what I was trying to describe Kosuke having when he left the occult research room earlier.


	5. A Night Without Rest

Chapter 5: A Night Without Rest

* * *

The curtains in his room were drawn and the door closed shut. No one in the house, alone from Issei, was awake.

Sitting on his bed, weary as he was, he couldn't help but be mesmerized by the red and green gauntlet adorning his left hand.

Soon enough though, his eyes dulled as he became wrapped up in his thoughts.

His life had been confusing beforehand, what with the usual teenage woes and such, but now his life was spiraling out of control.

As hot as Rias was, it was pretty difficult to wrap his head around the fact she was suddenly his 'Master'. That suddenly he had to fight and toil and struggle and suffer for an indeterminate amount of time just for the chance to gain some sort of freedom.

He didn't want any part of this. It had all just been thrown onto him without him asking.

He was suppose to be angry; anyone in this situation should've been seething with anger.

However the heat in his stomach was far less than it should have been. Those nasty, hard, damn near tangible emotions that roiled in your gut like a vat of molten metal seemed more like a pot of water that hadn't even reached boil yet.

He . . . wasn't angry. Irritated? Perhaps, but even then he wasn't sure he could call the emotion that.

"I should be able to talk to you," He whispered, his voice seeming almost breathless with the ease that the sentence passed his lips. "But our communication is blocked until I'm strong enough to handle the power you hold."

"I . . . I'm not sure how long that'll take," Hesitation and indecision marred his words as he spoke to the foreign object adorning his left hand; steadily though, his voice rose along with the conviction in his heart. "But I'll work as hard as I have to. I want to get there as fast as possible, I'm already behind everyone else."

He rose silently from his bed and walked out his room; completely unconcerned with any of his family seeing his sacred gear, knowing full well no one would begin to stir for at least another hour.

Barefeet padded down empty halls and past closed doors until he found himself standing within one door way.

The basement appeared the way it always had since he was little. Cement grey walls, floor, and ceiling, with bare few objects within. A stack of dull brown boxes with personal belongings made up the storage aspect, paired with a tall beige filing cabinet with drawers locked and no key present. Those objects took up space along the far left wall, while on the opposite end of the room, lay an ugly shag carpet that was probably a dark red at one point, but had transitioned to a color more reminiscent of rust. Upon that carpet was an old bench press with the bar still on the rack, free weights strewn about haphazardly, and a few sets of dumbells that he knew hadn't been touched in some time. Drilled into the ceiling was a pull up bar that hung from chains that somehow hadn't oxidized over the years.

The equipment was apparently from a time when his father used to work out, however Issei knew it hadn't been used since he was born, as even in pictures depicting his first birthday, it was apparent his father hadn't been managing his physique.

Looking down at his left hand, he willed the gauntlet to disappear. It didn't respond, and a frown marked his face. His eyebrows scrunched together into a small glare, as he focused his mind on making the sacred gear retreat. This time it did.

Huffing out a small sigh and relaxing for a moment, he let his feet carry him so that he stood directly below the bar.

"Guess this is as good as any place to start."

* * *

He had a vague recollection of his dream, but the images were slipping out of his mental grasp and he couldn't even put the story into words.

He had been awake for all of 3 seconds now, but it was enough time to fully bring his mind into the present.

Zero drowsiness; his mind was working at 100% already.

'Just like it should be.' Kosuke smiled slightly in pride at the thought.

A quick glance at his alarm and familiar green numbers pointed it out to be 4:37.

His feet swung over the bed and he smoothly transitioned into a walk once his toes reached the hardwood.

The two fans he kept near his bed hummed noisily and he could hear them as he walked out the door and turned down the hall to the bathroom.

More like stumbled; while his mind was there, his body wasn't quite there yet.

Hell, he had to put one hand against the wall just to steady himself while he expelled damn near a liter of piss.

His finger met the flush easily, and soon enough the room was drowned out with the loud churning of the water in the bowl.

His surroundings were dark, and he couldn't see much, but his feet guided him to the kitchen on sheer memory alone, having taken this trip once or twice a night for a year now.

Guiding a cup to the water tray on the fridge, Kosuke pushed the button and watched the cup fill up with cold water.

Blue LED's lit up the small area in front and threw harsh shadows across the kitchen. Even now, without utilising his sacred gear, he could feel the presence of the shadows like the touch of objects against the hairs on his arm.

It was light, but recognizable.

Taking the cup away once it had filled up enough, the boy downed it all in a short few seconds.

The lights turned off, the shadows softened, and the room was plunged into darkness once more.

Kosuke was able to find his room easily though.

Upon entering, he stood within the middle of his room, looking at his bed with a small frown.

Usually he'd go back to bed at this point, but was he even tired anymore?

He wasn't drowsy in the least bit. He had arrived home around 11:45 and hit the sack.

'So about 4 and a half hours, huh?' His mind surmised.

Just enough to fall into a deep sleep, but not long enough to be incredibly drowsy by the time you awoke.

'Fuck it.' He turned the fans off, grabbed his phone off the charger, and headed off to the bathroom once more.

The room was quickly filled with the sound of running water, and Kosuke began brushing his teeth.

He connected his phone to the bluetooth speaker he kept in the room, and turned on a soft playlist.

Within a couple minutes, the shower water was comfortably lukewarm - he rarely took warm or even hot showers- and he stepped inside, not even bothering to turn on the lights.

 _These_ were the times he appreciated most.

While he was naturally extraverted, over the two and a half years since his parents had died, he had come to truly enjoy being alone as well.

Being alone was great if you knew how to enjoy your own company. It was something he had dreaded when he was younger, but now he welcomed it.

While the water felt a little hot on his sensitive face as he washed the soap off, it felt much nicer on his body that was cold to the touch.

Friends, he had found out, were really good distractions. And that was all nice and well at times, but nothing really got done when you were with your friends, just a whole lot of goofing off and riffing off one another.

It was all good and well, and Kosuke gained a lot of energy from crowds of people, but at the same time, he knew that there needed to be a balance.

After all, work didn't get done with distractions, and Kosuke was someone who completely devoted himself to his work.

Dunking his head under the water, he massaged his scalp. Before blindly grabbing for a bottle of shampoo- dammit, he needed more- which turned out to be conditioner and lathered it in.

Even though he was still a kid for the most part, he was no different from the men who would work long hours in the office and completely forgo feeding themselves and other natural needs just to see something through to the end.

It was often when he'd find himself so completely absorbed with his music that he'd forgo meals and even put off bathroom breaks.

A long drawn out sigh escaped his lips once the warm water began spilling from his hair.

It was getting fairly long, huh? It'd probably be at the desired length in a year or two.

Brushing his teeth, blow drying his hair, it was a good 8 or so minutes when he finally made it back into his room.

'5:12.' He acknowledged.

Roughly 2 hours until he needed to go to school, and even longer if he decided to just jump to the school with his new abilities.

'That leaves plenty of practice time.' The sheer thought was enough to provoke a smirk from him.

'Alright, alright, alrighty then.' Gripping just below the headstock and plucking a guitar off its stand with his left hand, his right hand guided his stool beneath him.

Spinning to face the desk in one smooth motion, he briefly wondered what to start with.

He should probably be practicing scales to a metronome, playing licks up to speed, playing along to some songs he knew, or warming up.

'Butttt . . . Jamming to a backing track is always more fun.' Opening up a new project on his DAW of choice, he loaded a rhythm section he had been working on about a week before.

An exercise in voice leading within C Harmonic Major that had actually yielded something pretty fucking good.

He would be sure to turn it into a full song.

All his equipment was wired and ready to go, he just needed to adjust the volume a bit on his PA.

His PA setup wasn't very professional, it was just about as many free or cheap speakers he could find through craigslist or in thrift stores all wired up and spread throughout the room.

It was cheap, arguably better than a wall of 4x4 cabs, he had achieved full surround sound through his room, and it got LOUD.

 _Very Loud._

There was a stupid amount of wiring and power involved, he wasn't even sure it was all that safe. The power consumption was probably ridiculous, but he had kill switches and a nightly routine of unplugging power cords from wall outlets. Hed usually leave everything unplugged until he needed it, however it seemed in the slew of recent circumstances, he had completely forgotten to unplug his setup.

It had been running for 4 days now.

"Fuck." The electric bill was probably gonna be atrocious.

His fingers absentmindedly ran through licks while the guitar was unplugged. A quick warm up would do him some good, he hadn't played in 4 days now.

The wiring situation wasn't all that pretty, but he did his best in concealing it all. His eyes traced the thick bundles of wire that wrapped around the room where crown moulding would be.

The wires brought his mind back to the electric bill. In worst case scenario the allowance his aunt gave him would go almost entirely to bills and hed pocket nothing this month. He had money saved up, but no money was still something he didn't like to hear.

Enough of that though, he was fully warmed up.

* * *

After an hour of quite possibly one of the best sessions he'd ever had, he figured that was enough for the morning.

It was 6:20 and he was still in his boxers after all.

Opening the closet, he was greeted to the monotony of dress code. Just a sea of simple neutral colors.

School uniforms sucked. They sucked ass, but it was what he had to work with.

At least they were a bit lenient with the students.

It wasn't cold enough to wear the jacket yet, he was fine with the shirt on its own.

Appropriately dressed, and with his backpack in hand, he headed down the hall and towards the kitchen.

Dropping his bag onto one of the couches, he slipped into some shoes and then into the kitchen for some more water.

Taking his time to finish what was in the cup this time around, he pressed his forehead against the cold steel of the refrigerator.

Standing there for a few minutes, he let himself doze off for a bit.

There was a short period of time in which all was still in the room, and everything remained quiet.

It was only interrupted by the ring of the doorbell.

Kosuke glanced at the timer on the microwave.

6:27

Who the fuck could possibly need him at this time?

Regardless, his feet carried him to the front door.

When he opened it, it took him a few seconds to process who he was looking at.

"Koneko." He said aloud in confusion.

White hair and golden eyes peeked up at him.

"Yeah, Rias wanted me to grab you," She explained as she let herself in, Kosuke a bit too offput to really put up any resistance. "Were having a club meeting before school today."

"Really now." The words slipped out of his mouth as he followed her with his eyes, one hand on the doorknob still.

He saw her glance around the livingroom, lingering a bit on the piano in the corner, but eventually her eyes landed on whatever she was looking for and she went to grab it.

"School doesn't start for a while; do we really need to be there that early?" He asked as she picked up his backpack and threw it over her shoulder; heading towards him and dragging him out his house.

The air outside was chilly, he'd estimate it to be around 60 or 55. The sky was still grey, interrupted only by the odd few trees that showed off just how green and vibrant they still were.

"The meeting doesn't start for 30 minutes," Her gaze caught his own once more as he numbly locked the door. "I figured I'd make good on that offer and take you for a bit of candy before the meeting."

Kosuke's excited grin in response was the sunlight among the bleak grey.

* * *

Walking in, bag of candy in hand and his escort at his side, he noticed the room looked more lively in the mornings.

With the curtains drawn back, and the beginnings of sunlight filtering through, the room looked like any other clubroom at school.

Still, his legs carried him further in. Dropping onto the couch and instantly lounging, he turned an eye towards everyone amassed, receiving a few pleasantries and smiles.

"Good everyone's here, although I ask next time, you two." She was looking directly at him and Koneko now, a smirk on her face that told him nothing was good. "I do ask that you keep your dates to _after_ club meetings."

The comment drew a small pout from the girl, while Kosuke smiled a bit in amusement.

"To start off..."

That began the 30 minute seminar in which Rias went over some of the more basic aspects of Devil Hood. Broaching topics about responsibilities, explaining Pact's a bit more, and even going as far as general history. The Great War was explained in further detail with everyone chiming in on key events and people.

It was a good solid introduction to what their life currently entailed, and both Issei and Kosuke could tell there was still far more that needed to be said.

However-

"The first bell will ring in a few minutes, I think this is a good place to stop." Akeno announced, her eyes still stuck on the clock on the wall to her left.

"You're right." Rias ended the meeting there.

* * *

"So study hall, huh." Kosuke repeated softly as the teacher disappeared out the room.

Apparently this big staff meeting was being held that day, so for the next two hours, they were stuck in homeroom, finishing up projects and such.

"Yep." Looking up, he saw Murayama drag a chair and sit across from him at the desk while finishing up her explanation. "These happen every so often, so expect another one not too far down the line."

"Hmm." he hummed in response.

Murayama smiled rather largely at him, before looking down at the papers in her hand.

"Alright, so with the project he gave us, I think we can-"

"We?"

Murayama looked up and blinked.

"Naw there's no we." He leaned back in his seat with a smirk on his face and amusement clear in his dark blue eyes.

"You're way~ too much of a distraction," Kosuke continued as he leaned in towards her. "How would I ever be able to focus."

"Ok." Murayama blinked again before setting her face in a teasing smirk and leaning back in her chair, narrowed eyes fully focused on his. "Just what about me is so distracting."

"Everything." And within a second, he had grabbed his items and stood up from his seat.

"Wait, what." She heard herself say as her eyes followed him migrate to another seat to the back and in the corner.

Worst part was, he had picked a spot where there were no seats available around him.

He even had the gall to send an infuriating smirk her way and then ignore her afterwards!

Huffing out a sigh and planting herself in Kosuke's original seat, she tried to buckle down and get some work done.

* * *

If he wanted to get his work done as fast as possible, he needed to be alone and focus. While he couldn't truly be alone due to it being a classroom, it wouldn't be too hard to tune everyone out.

All he needed were his earbuds and a playlist. Fishing his earbuds out his pocket and underneath his shirt easily, Kosuke unlocked his phone and began scrolling through the vast amount of songs on his phone.

He had something like 76 hours of music downloaded, and there were still new additions almost daily. With that kind of selection, perhaps he was better off choosing a familiar playlist.

A softer playlist would work well; scanning the 6 page packet he'd been given, he guessed it wouldn't take him more than 15 minutes. It was mostly comprised of 4 or 5 concepts with a good 5 or 7 separate word problems and equations related to each. If you knew how to solve the first you encountered, the other 5 or 6 were simple to get through. It was the kinda bullshit half assed practice that teachers often handed their kids. Some reasoning along the lines of, "solve this set of problems multiple times and you've successfully learned it."

The concepts were linear and there was only ever one solution, he didn't need to practice the same concept for two weeks, doing nothing but the same problem with just a couple numbers substituted and the functions swapped. He didn't need to practice the same fundamental equation 13 times, 2 was more than enough.

It was nothing more than an insult to his intelligence, and considering the school he had transferred into, this was probably an insult to most of his classmates as well.

This was the kind of public school nonsense he thought he wouldn't be seeing more of once he had transferred into this academy.

His face held a slightly irritated look; once he started the first song on the playlist, he let himself relax into it.

A sigh escaped him as he glanced through the first problem; he didn't even finish reading the word problem before he knew what he was being asked of.

All he could hope for was that this wasn't normal, and that it was just a last minute "keep the kids busy" measure while the teachers handled whatever they needed to take care of.

* * *

"Hey Murayama." He said with a low even tone, plopping himself lazily into the chair she had left in front of his desk earlier in the period and setting his packet down.

Those problems were easy but solving them for 20 minutes straight was exhausting.

"You're finished already, Kosuke?" A look of surprise flashed for a second, before she peered at the remaining problems on her own packet appraisingly. "I've got 7 left."

"That entire row over there and the small group in that other corner," Tilting his head in the two directions and leading her eyes there, he finished up his sentence. "are finished too. I'd say the rest of the class should be done in either 10 or 15 minutes."

Murayama would probably only take 5 more minutes if it weren't for him giving her the rest of his packet to copy.

Things were certainly different here.

At his old school there would've been kids who even trying, not just sitting there and lazing about, would take practically the whole 2 hours they'd just been provided and still struggle. Here though, all the kids were at similar levels of intelligence and at the higher end of the spectrum. Kids were weeded out each semester if they couldn't hang with the program, so it was often that there was transfer students. Kids excelling at their previous schools and being recommended in by their teachers.

Kosuke himself had tried the last semester of his previous year and made a conscious effort not to procrastinate. His A-B average had turned into straight A's once he gained a drive and at the end of the year, his teachers had put in a good word to this school.

"Don't forget we have casual friday tomorrow."

"Casual Friday?" he asked, suddenly ripped away from his musing as he replied to her.

"Oh," A thoughtful hum made itself known from the girl before she began to explain. "I guess you wouldn't really know, huh? It's only now going into effect."

"Basically every Friday were allowed to wear street clothes instead of our school uniform."

Kosuke blinked in surprise.

"And how exactly did we earn that privilege?"

He watched her eyes open just a bit wider and her smile grow. Seeing her excitement made him smile just a little bit too.

"Well the student council president came up with the proposal last year. To sum it up if all the students decided to study a bit more in earnest and the class averages rose on our finals by 5%, we'd get casual Friday." Murayama summed up.

That was . . . a damned good deal wasn't it. Motivated students which helped out the school, and it seemed admin didn't mind giving them a small reprieve from dress code as they had earned it.

"To be able to negotiate something like that and actually get approval from the dean, this guy must be pretty smart, I'd like to meet him sometime."

"Her names Souna, but yeah. If you wanna meet her I can take you. It'd probably be good too since your new at this school." Murayama trailed off a bit at the end, talking to herself more than him.

Hmm.

He was finished with his work, maybe he'd go check on Kiba, his class was a few doors down wasn't it.

Scooting out from his seat, he offered the girl an absentminded "I'll be back" and headed out.

* * *

"Hey class from down the path!" His greeting brought on more than a few smiles and waves. Stepping inside he made sure to smile back at everyone he passed by.

"Who's that." Was asked quietly a few times, but Kiba's "Ah, Kosuke." certainly was the loudest.

"Just the man I was looking for." Kosuke tried not to grin too much at what he was about to do.

"You two know each other?" Some guy standing at a desk in front of Kiba had asked.

"Oh yeah for sure," Placing an arm around Kiba's shoulder in good nature, he tried not to burst out laughing too early. "This is my boyfriend~, Kiba."

"Yeah, this is my good frien-" The polite smile he had on his face quickly morphed into shock once the words registered with him. "Wait, what!"

Kosuke couldn't hold in his laughter once Kiba had shoved him away roughly, and neither could most of the class.

"No no- this isn't no wh-" He fumbled over words and for the first time his composure completely slipped; the entire class was laughing pretty loudly, and some dude further down the row actually started crying.

"Bro, why you acting different all the sudden." His joke earned him a high five from some of the boys closer to him.

"Kosuke, please stop before someone thinks this isn't a joke." Kibas voice sounded a lot more pitiful than he was used to hearing.

"Alright alright man, I'm done." Kosuke snickered a little bit more before pointing his thumb towards the other end of the classroom. "But I think it's a bit too late for those girls over there."

"Why is it always the cute ones that are gay!" Kiba deadpanned at the sight of the 12 females arguing amongst themselves and taking the joke way too seriously.

"Oh you don't really think Kiba's gay do you, it's obvious the other one was just hazing him."

Thank goodness one of them had some sense about them.

"I don't know, I mean, Kibas never shown any interest in any of the girls at this school. Not to mention Kosukes part of the ORC now as well, the two must spend a lot of time together after school."

3 more girls rushed to the gathering and even Kosuke was a bit thrown off at the new situation.

"Isn't Issei apart of it too," A couple gasps sounded off before the speaker continued in a softer voice. "Do you think all the boys in that club do those kinds of things."

"There's no way!" A group of 5 approached and Kosuke felt the situation start to spin wildly out of control as almost the entire female population of that class, and even some girls from the neighboring classes all stood amongst themselves.

"We've seen how Issei acts, he's so straight he makes most of us look gay."

"But what if he's just acting out and overcompensating so that no one would catch on."

Now it seemed all the girls were convinced; they quickly fell into hushed whispers and Kosuke began to regret his actions.

'Maybe I should've hazed him in a different way.'

"Is that how fan clubs start?" One of the dudes asked.

Turning to him, Kosuke ground out a "I hope not." before trying to change the topic to something more appealing.

"So what are your guys' names?" he asked the 4 boys whos seats were closest to Kiba's.

"Shirozaki." The others followed up after him.

* * *

No club with Murayama today, meant he had some time on his hands.

And he knew exactly what he wanted to spend the next hour doing.

Heading down a staircase and walking into the shadow present, Kosuke's steps never faltered and within a second he was walking into his living room.

Throwing his bag onto the couch and heading towards the high gloss piano seat reserved for him and him only, Kosuke sat himself down at the baby grand steinway in his living room. It was a beautiful caramel brown that held strong figure and variation in the wood. The high gloss was a magnificent choice and he made sure to wipe it down every two weeks.

It was something his aunt had been renting ever since he had come to live with her.

He didn't take lessons anymore, the songs he wanted to learn were all online free for him to view. Ost of the stuff he liked to play was either songs he created himself, or pieces originally created for multiple instruments, but someone with the kind of skill he wished to have already made a solo arrangement. He played lots of video game pieces, or anime openings. He studied music theory in class and implemented the practical stuff there, but at home it was all fun.

There was a particular passage that had his left hand fumbling that he wanted to get under control.

That would be how he spent the rest of his lunch period.

* * *

"What the hell do you think you're doing here!" Barely three steps in the facility and he was already being yelled at.

"I haven't even done anything." He uttered without thinking.

"Yet, Hyoudo! You haven't done anything yet." The hurried footsteps of the gymnastics club captain led her face to face with Issei; the boy noticing how pretty she was almost immediately.

He wasn't sure if she was red from exertion or from yelling at him, but he was still fascinated with the speed it had occurred. Lunch had only started 10 minutes ago, so if either were true-

"Again what do you want?" She bit out, snapping Issei out of his musing.

"I want to train."

His response was a mockful laughter; and with her face this close to his, and the volume with which she started guffawing, he noted her face didn't look very pretty at all.

Her laughter went on and on, like a wild jackal. Hell, some of the girls in the back joined in.

It really started to piss him off. Something that had been happening a lot lately.

He was real tired of all the ridicule.

His abashed yet friendly face slowly morphed into a tight lipped frown; a near perfect replica of the face he had seen Kosuke pull off time and time again.

"Are you done yet." Almost immediately she stopped laughing and raised her head from her position bent over to meet his eyes.

Her eyes closed and she slowly rose back into a stand.

"So let me get this straight, you want me to train you?" The skepticism in her voice needn't even be pointed out.

"Not you specifically, but yeah something along those lines." Was his cold response.

"Ohhh~," A girl farther back suddenly called out. "Looks like somebody finally grew some balls."

He didn't even try to keep composed, his eyes whipped towards hers in a barely contained glare.

"Kyah!" She cried dramatically, clutching at her friend who barked in laughter. "Im sooo~ scared."

Clenching his teeth for a moment he turned his attention back towards his original target.

"So, will you-"

"No." She cut him off immediately, a small smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth as she saw his expression. "This room is open to everyone during lunch, if you want to learn from me, you'll have to join the club."

She whipped around and began a slow walk away from the boy, tossing one last remark over her shoulder.

"And no, I will not permit you to join the club, so tough luck."

A snicker had barely made it past her mouth when she found reason to face him again.

"Here then."

She turned around in mild confusion before her face lit up in fury.

Issei held his hand outstretched with 3000 yen(something like 30 USD) in his palm.

"Are you calling me some sort of prostitute! I don't know what the hell you heard, but I am NOT easy! And even if I was there's no way I'd ever… with you." Her anger was enough to make her choke on her words, and the last part of her sentence was said with no small amount of contempt.

Her reaction caught Issei so off guard he immediately fell back into old habits and quickly tried to run damage control; instantly losing all face he had just made with them.

"No! No no no noo. I meant like, I- I meant as in, like a teacher. Im paying you to teach me." He had become flustered enough to start tripping over his words; and the girl, seemingly happy with the fact he had groveled before her, dropped all her anger within moments.

Snatching the money out his hand, and turning a nose up at him, she turned around once more and briskly walked away.

"Thanks for the gift loser, but your still on your own." A nasty cackle erupted from her, and even though Hyoudo couldn't see her face, he could imagine her visage twisting into that ugly image again.

His fists clenched, but luckily he had the sense to spin around fast enough that they didn't see his face contort into abject rage, and to shove his hands in his pockets.

He walked at a clipped pace towards the other end of the room, as far away from everyone else as he could get, and towards the balancing beams.

He didn't have the control to school his expression into a constant state of apathy like Koneko did, but he at least knew how to hide it from people.

He calmed down soon enough, and his feet eventually led him in front of a long row of balancing beams. And while he did want to just hop on and get to work, he was apprehensive of it.

He quickly glanced across the room to where the other girls were going through stretching exercises, before looking back down at the narrow walk.

He didn't exactly want to fall and have the others laugh at him. An understandable fear.

'But then again.' His eyes narrowed and he hopped onto the beam and managed to balance himself fairly easily.

'I'm already a laughing stock as well as the butt of their jokes,' His angered thoughts carried him forward as he walked across the 12 foot long beam, his steps fast and unhindered. 'Not like anything I do now will make it worse. Why care.'

A smirk crossed his face as he saw himself nearing the ¾ mark.

'I got this shit in the bag-' His balance faltered and he caught himself slipping off the beam.

Despite their attempts to remain quiet, the hushed snickers of a few of the ladies across the room still managed to reach his ears.

His face flushed as he walked back to the beginning to start over.

"Guess that'll teach me a lesson." He muttered under his breath as he stepped onto the beam once more.

Taking a much more sedate pace this time around, he found it much easier to keep balanced. About midway he faltered again, and quickly crouched down so as to place his hands down and steady himself. However, before he could even wrap his hands around the beam, he noticed that his balanced had been regained.

'Was it because I was crouching?' He asked himself.

Resuming, he made it across the beam with avail. He frowned though as he finished; he wanted to test his hypothesis still.

Stepping back on he waited for his steps to falter, and when he lost balance, he quickly lowered his stance and noticed immediately, even with one leg off to the side in the air, his balance had been regained.

A smile made itself known at the discovery, and soon enough, the bell signalling the end of lunch rung.

* * *

"Make dinner for two, I'll be home tonight." She read over his shoulder, before placing herself at his side and teasing him. "Ohhh~ you're girlfriend coming over tonight?"

"Yeah, you are coming over tonight." A smile tugged at Kosukes lips as he and Murayama walked down the hallways. "I was always told to take a girl out to dinner before I could get what I was really after."

Murayama snorted at him and raised an eyebrow.

"Sorry little boy, but I don't think you could handle all of this." She mocked him as she slid her hands down her body to accentuate all her curves.

He watched her exaggerated movements out the corner of his vision before rolling his eyes.

"No, It's my aunt. She'll be back from her business trip tonight so she wants me to make dinner for more than just one." He explained as he cut around the oncoming students.

Snaking through with minimum effort, moving the barest amount to get past them, leaning, weaving and side stepping through the crowd like it was a game. And it was a game to him, something he had been practicing for years now. Weaving through crowds was second nature, it as how he had gotten so good at being able to dodge or take glancing blows while in kendo even though he'd only been practicing a few days.

It would most assuredly come in handy with this new devil business he had found himself in. It was the only reason he lasted as long as he had against the girl from before.

'I bet she'd be real surprised if she ever saw me again.' He smirked a bit in good humor

Murayama didn't know exactly why he was smirking, but it didn't matter much as they reached the school gate and the two had to go their own separate ways.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Kosuke." She called out.

Kosuke just waved with a smile before turning the corner.

* * *

"What are you doing?"

Glancing over his shoulder in a tight lipped look that could almost be labeled as irritation, but was nothing more than a blank slate, Kosuke eyed Kusuri behind him.

Golden eyes locked onto Kosuke's own amber irises; Kusuri kept her eyes trained on the naked boys eyes, finding herself a little caught up in the annular eclipse.

"Watch." Kosuke took one more glance to his right; where the tall mirror lay against his wall, and took in his whole body once more.

Licking his lips in anticipation, he trained his eyes at the space before him and focused all his thoughts onto one goal.

As if the sun outside had set within seconds, the shadow of his body, which had been behind him, began to rotate clockwise, gaining more mass and length as it traveled, until 6 hit 12 and his shadow now stood before him.

Not a word was said and Kosuke stared deep and hard into the void of darkness on the floor. In his mind's eye, visualizing the next step in vivid clarity until it wasn't just a fantasy-

Slowly a black hand and forearm emerged.

-but full blown reality.

Rising from the 2-D shadow came another hand and forearm combo followed up by an arm and shoulder.

He felt more than he saw Kusuri approach his side; he only had eyes for his creation after all.

Setting its hands off to the side of the shadow, the creation began to haul even more of itself out of the confines of the black pool, until the form of a boy kneeling could be seen.

Head down and hair splayed forward, dark black droplets of water fell from his form, revealing white skin and a nude form, while the obsidian ink gathered at his feet and grew into a shadow.

Once the other boy rose, surprisingly dry after being soaking wet from the black ink before, Kosuke found himself looking at Kosuke.

"This is a fucking trip." He heard his double speak up.

The original Kosuke snorted and bit back a snicker.

"Damn, I got to give myself a pat on the back for this one, I did damned well."

"Yeah, I did a pretty good job," He heard the other say aloud, taking glances around the room before training a similar look of interest on him. "But this could have ended much much worse."

"Ah." With a snap and an odd sound of agreement, Kosuke quickly caught on to what his copy was going on about. "The issue with the existential crisis, huh? Yeah, I had considered that."

"It's pretty wild," The other boy spoke up, one hand on his hip and his face taking on a thoughtful expression. "I feel exactly like the original, if I didn't have memories of surfacing from that shadow just now, I would have probably tried to kill you out of shock."

"Memories, huh? But aren't you exactly like me. I tried to give you the same memories so that you didn't come out as some sort of husk." Kosuke said with a small frown before pressing it further. "Just what do you remember before this?"

"Our entire life, I mean, I am you. I remember Kusuri asking me what I was up to, then showing her my 'creaton', thinking through the entire process, and then I was crawling out of the shadows, and suddenly I'm talking to myself.

"Wow, that's… something else man." Kosuke was impressed and whistled lightly in show of.

"Crazy shit, right? Still trying to wrap my head around it."

The two shared a laugh at that one.

"Damn, yeah. I still have to remind myself I'm not the original and fall into fight or flight mode." His copy spoke up.

Kosuke drew in a breath and recoiled slightly.

"Damn, sorry about that man, must be a total assault on your brain."

"Naw, naw." The other made a shooing motion with his hand and dismissed Kosuke's concern. "I'm fine, It's not some ever constant thing that'll drive me crazy like I- _we_ had initially thought while figuring this little trick out. And besides, I'm you, I can handle this."

"Youre right, youre right." Kosuke smiled at the other Kosuke.

They both laughed heartily again.

Now taking a moment to glance down at Kusuri who had stayed silent by his side, Kosuke gave her a warm smile that betrayed the excitement he was feeling.

"So, Kusuri, what do you think?"

Kusuri locked bored eyes with him and just stared for a moment.

"Before I praise you and such, cause this is quite the good job, mind if I ask something first?"

Kosuke nodded in response.

"Yeah sure, what's up?"

"Why exactly did you need to get undressed for this?"

Sure enough, little lady was right on the mark. Kosuke was completely in the buff, not even some boxers to work with.

"I needed to get a solid look at my body to make sure everything was perfect in my head when I formed him." The boy explained rather easily.

A small hum of acknowledgement made itself apparent in the girls throat.

Kosuke just tried not to focus on the fact that he was essentially exposing this 13(?) year old girl to his nude body.

Good luck with that one, Kosuke.

"Hmm," The other Kosuke hummed in thought, closing his eyes and pondering for a moment. "You know I'm still thinking in terms of normal Kosuke, as in original. I have to keep reminding myself that the real one is top priority."

"We should probably fix that, sounds like trouble waiting to happen."

"Yeah, it probably is. Next time I manifest another clone, I should probably add that to the package."

"I don't want to make him too reckless or that'll defeat the purpose though."

"Exactly, I'll have to ponder this some more, perhaps something like 'Protection: you come second to the originals purpose." Kosukes copy supplied.

"And since both our goals are the same, we shouldn't have too much to worry about."

The two high fived at the exact same time, already thinking the same exact thing.

"Damn, if I'm not the shit."

"I know I am." The other Kosuke followed.

"Well I guess it's time to go then." And with that, Kosukes other fell backwards and into the black void that was his shadow until then even it disappeared into nothing.

"Neat."

* * *

Sucking in deep lungfuls of air, Kosuke leaned more into the cool metal that pressed against him. His skin was damp from sweat and red from exertion.

The open window above him let in the cool air and the sound of the train speeding along the tracks.

Rising up slowly, he took a glance out the window before slumping back onto the floor.

A smirk made its way on his weary face.

He had meant to throw himself to his old neighborhood, but somewhere along the line lost concentration and ended up on the back of an empty train halfway across japan.

At least he was in the same city as the neighborhood he had been searching for.

He had been spending the past hour jumping to different locations without having to enter and exit the shadows. His accuracy had increased and all it took for him to get where he wanted was the blink of his eyes.

However, when it came to incredibly long distances, and boy was this fucking far, his accuracy fell.

The window on the wall to his right showed the dark night sky and the tops of buildings. Lights from businesses and skyscraper windows shined bright like the stars in the night, and the usually green tree leaves became the black silhouettes the lights struggled to fight against.

At least he was only a few blocks away from his original goal.

He was quite curious how far this was though.

Suddenly more alert, he dragged himself into a more proper sitting position and took out his phone.

Google maps should be able to calculate the distance.

Light filtered through the numerous windows and moved across the train in haphazard patterns. Cold but welcoming metal chilled his body, and dark blue eyes focused on the screen before him.

He involuntarily gulped and his hand shook a bit when the results finally came up; dark blue eyes widening considerably and turned a much lighter shade now that they were freed from the shadow his eyelids cast.

"1000 km." A feminine voice said, and his gaze turned upward where he saw Kusuri's face smiling softly down on him. "Good job, you continue to surprise me and surpass all expectations. I can only hope this trend continues in our future."

She . . . had a really nice smile didn't she. This was the first time he had seen it, but it was something he hoped to see more of.

"Our future, huh?" She tilted her head the barest of inches but it was enough to send her long black hair to fall around his face; a black tunnel that forced him to focus on her and her piercing gold eyed stare.

"Yeah, our future." She answered soft and as graceful as always; the kind of act that not even Rias was capable of. "I've been with you since you were born, and I'll stay with you until the day you die centuries down the line."

A soft grunt of acknowledgement made itself known.

"Anyways," Finally pushing her hair back and lifting the veil of darkness around his face, she pointed off somewhere nearby from the window closest them. "Let's get off over there."

And then, she wasn't there anymore.

A quick glance out the window, and he saw her standing on the roof of a house nearby.

Within the blink of an eye, he found himself sitting on cold hard roof tiles while waiting on the little girls next instructions.

"The old bridge you use to frequent." She said softly.

They both found themselves standing across from one another near instantaneous.

The large bridge towered above them; the position of the moon and the numerous lights nearby keeping the ground free from any shadows, but failing to keep them away from the walls.

It was fairly cold that night, enough that he could see his breath leaving his mouth. And in his light long sleeve, shorts, and mid-calf reaching socks, you'd believe him to be cold, However all he felt was the comforting coolness that came with being outside at night.

He saw her flicker out of existence and reappear much farther away from him. An actual instantaneous movement which he couldn't track whatsoever despite his eyes being trained on her.

"I want you to use the shadows to catch me, however you must not be seen by me."

His eyes did a preliminary sweep of the dark walls that surrounded him, and the various railings above that made the support of the bridge. A hazardous catwalk shrouded in black.

A small grunt of acknowledgement was all Kosuke made before he disappeared from view.

Kusuri stood there waiting for him to show, but she seemed almost alone now. It was true that she couldn't see him, but she could sense his location from just how strong her connection to the shadows was.

Several seconds became several minutes, and she was starting to wonder if he had actually just decided not to participate. Her foot began to tap the floor impatiently, and it wasn't until a few seconds later that she caught herself.

A smirk appeared on her face when she realized what he was doing.

"I see, trying to draw out my impatience so that I'd be-" She stopped speaking to whip her head behind her, where she sensed the boy.

She caught the briefest glance of him out the corner of her eye before he vanished once more. Turning her head a bit more slowly this time, she looked to a spot high on the wall to her left, and then to her right, above her, and in a myriad of different directions as she tracked his various jumps.

"Very smart, you showed up before I could finish my sentence in the hopes of catching me off guard, and your tactic before hand to draw out my impatience increased the effectiveness of the play." Kusuri stared ahead of her into space as she applauded the boy.

Her stopping gave Kosuke a chance to remain in one position and listen. He didn't have to jump to a new location as soon as he surfaced because she had tracked him so soon.

"No response either, huh?" A small smile appeared briefly on her face before falling back into a thin line. "I have nothing but the highest of praises for you. I'm very glad I don't have to rid you of the foolish actions that have gotten my previous wielders killed, it's a relief that I have a good base to start from."

"Right, Kosuke." Her eyes floated over to his position atop a covered lamppost, however she didn't even catch a glimpse of him this time.

'Very Good, he's a fast learner.' She waited once more for him to resurface, however she couldn't sense anything this time.

Her eyes widened in surprise, and for a second time that night he had gotten the drop on her.

"Interesting."

* * *

He heard her say aloud.

'Good, she cant sense me if I haven't emerged.' He summarized in his head.

He stood in the black world that held the shards of light that he used to travel. Staring outside of one, he could hear and see what was going on without her being able to sense his location. And it made sense, he wasn't really anywhere after all.

'I could have finished this easily enough within the first move, but she doesn't have a shadow for me to jump to.' He didn't dare speak aloud; there was no doubt in his mind that she wouldn't be able to hear, but he didn't feel like developing any bad habits.

He had to find some way of producing a shadow close to her, and reaching it quickly. The problem was she was in such a well lit area and far away from any walls. The moment he emerged she knew where his location was and she'd look right at him. While he could easily extend the shadow of the walls to get closer to her, it was way too obvious. He needed something to surprise her.

The size of the shadow didn't matter much, he just needed clearance in general. Something as small as a pebble would suffice.

'A pebble, huh?' Rapidly a plan formulated in his head and he struggled to keep the corners of his mouth from rising.

With a single thought, a large window of light appeared beside him, the background was of the train tracks and the pebbles that lay around. Not even bothering to move from his spot, his arm snaked in and snatched a good sized rock before reeling back in.

From his position he saw her look above to where she had clearly sensed his presence when he had retrieved the rock.

Now he really couldn't hold back a smile from taking form.

'Good even partial emergence is enough to trigger her senses.'

Turning around and staring at the floor, he willed another window into existence. This one far more immense in size than any before as it served as the portal for the underside of the bridge. Eyes that mimicked that of an annular eclipse focused on the window before him as his thoughts shrunk the window into a small circle that opened directly above the little girl.

Tossing the pebble down into the window he turned around to the original window and watched her like a hawk.

Her eyes narrowed and she glanced above her.

'Perfect.' Pushing a single foot out of the window before him, Kosuke took great pleasure in seeing her surprised face whip towards his location.

Pulling his foot back in before she could see, he jumped through the shadow the rock was creating and appeared right behind his target.

Eyes gleeful he prepared the last step of the plan.

In one smooth motion he lifted up his shirt and quickly covered her face with it.

"Gotcha!"

"KOSUKE!" It was the first time he had heard her raise her voice and all he could do was fall into a fit of laughter.

Quickly releasing her, she then turned around and tried to glare at him.

She was so small though. He couldn't take her seriously for a single second. His laughing increased two fold.

Her glare quickly turned into one of the cutest pouts he had ever seen.

"Ok ok, Im sorry. C'mere." Finally getting himself under control but smiling nonetheless, he pulled her into a hug.

Face buried into his sternum, she stayed there for a short while not saying anything.

Kosuke felt her deflate a little and felt the explosive sigh that she emitted.

"Fine then, let's go home."

* * *

"I've been able to locate him before, multiple times." Indignation in her voice and brows furrowed, Rias watched once more as her magic circle collapsed in on itself.

The bright red lights from her magic circles lit up the room momentarily and waves of light rippled across the faces of all present, before quickly retreating as the magic collapsed and plunged the room into a dim darkness once more.

Kiba drummed his fingers lightly across the top of the couch who's back he leaned up against. Boredom and impatience was beginning to wear on him so much that even his normally polite visage had fallen into a tight lipped frown.

Koneko refused to even deign the matter with her interest; she sat facing away from everyone and stared at the wall before her.

Issei sat across from her on the other couch presented, face set into one of slight concern although it was hard to tell as he had been spacing out for much of the day and appeared to have been lost within his thoughts since the morning.

However, this was of no concern to Koneko who paid him zero attention, instead watching in a daze as soft warm lights arced low upon the far wall before quickly falling into oblivion. Easily returning to the monotony of the cold grey walls.

Kiba's head tilted back and a silent sigh escaped him; his fingers drummed a little harder and the pace had quickened.

Akeno, who remained closest to her king, showed the barest hint of a smile when she saw the barely held frustration on Rias' face.

The ever so calm and collected Rias who was now showing just how easily her newest addition could get to her greatly amused Akeno whether or not she showed it.

Rias blew a hair out of her face only for it to fall back on her forehead and cling to her brow that was slightly damp with sweat. Her face twitched and full blown irritation could be seen for a brief moment.

Her movements were noticeably more jerky and rushed as her left hand raised for the umpteenth time that night and called upon her, now shaky, magical reserves.

And for the umpteenth time that night, it failed again.

Both hands shot up to her face in an instant and slid down hastily.

"Hahaha~" Akeno giggled in a cute manner.

Blue eyes shot towards purple; one set in irritation, the other in clear mirth.

"What's so funny." Rias almost snapped, but managed to keep some semblance of control over her limited amount of patience.

"I just think its funny seeing you get so hot and bothered by our junior~" Akeno replied, almost begging for a confrontation.

Kiba exploded into motion as he pushed off his support and regarded the two; arms crossed and an impatient expression on his face.

"You know I think we should stop here," His voice was hard and unwavering, commanding rather than suggesting. "He's not in any trouble otherwise you would have known, so were more than likely to see him tomorrow. At that time we can ask questions about his whereabouts and why he skipped the meeting after school."

"For now though," And now his attention focused solely on Rias. "You need to rest, I can see how weary you are, that isn't healthy."

"I'm just fine, I can-" Her response was promptly cut off and any excuses were shut down immediately.

"He's right, you don't have any work to do, what harm would some sleep do?" Akeno said, and while it had been worded as a question, it was an unspoken order that even a king had to obey to.

Her shoulders relaxed and the tenseness that had occupied her body vacated instantly.

"Yeah, I guess you two are right." Brushing her bangs out of her face and finally letting the exhaustion show in her voice, Rias shuffled to the other door at the end of the room and disappeared behind it.

* * *

"There's one thing I wanted to ask." Opening a can of prego, he dumped the contents into a pot filled with ground beef.

Kusuri sat on the counter behind him, ankles crossed and hands in her lap, always the prim proper lady.

"Yes." Her elegant voice had resurfaced and Kosuke admired her poise.

"How come you don't have a shadow. That exercise took longer than it was suppose to since I couldn't just surface from your shadow." Blue eyes searched the spice cabinet for the bottles he needed while he waited for a response.

He waited a long while before she gave him a response, in which time he had added the seasoning, stirred the mixture, and set a pot of water to boil.

"Can shadows cast their own shadow?" Was her eventual answer.

The pot had finally reached a boil; adding a bit of salt he followed with a box of spaghetti. Idly stirring it around he muddled over her words.

"How . . . . vague."

Somehow, even with his back turned, he could tell she was smiling.

"If you're about to get into a battle, I want you to take my hand." For once she actually seemed concerned, and his eyes drifted towards her outstretched hand as she continued. "You've exhausted yourself all day; your running on fumes. You should conserve energy for whatever foe it seems your friend is facing."

Kosuke seemed to mull over her words for a moment, eyes still focused entirely on the small hand offered.

Without a word, he grasped her palm tightly and almost immediately, found himself 10 or so yards behind Issei on a neighborhood street. Glancing at his side, Kusuri had vanished and thus he was fighting this one on his own.

A purple dome blocked out the night sky, and a business woman with black wings reminiscent of that Yuuma girl hovered above a speechless Issei.

It was obvious he was at a nasty advantage.

The street was far too well lit, and on top of that, his opponent was airborne.

'Damn.' He knew his only chance at saving his friend against this obviously superior opponent would be to rely fully on his sacred gear. However, for that to happen, he needed a place where he could utilise the shadows as well as keep her out of the air and in more neutral territory.

And as if the devil herself was watching out for him, thankfully a large parking garage wasn't too far away from them. Just behind them and maybe ten minutes away.

However looking at the spear of light the woman held, he didn't really think he'd be able to get their fast enough. She was a far more experienced flier; Kosuke would be a fool to not believe she'd be able to catch up to them if they tried to haul ass to the parking garage.

There was only really one option. He'd just have to grab Issei and jump straight to the parking garage. His accuracy was much higher now that he'd had so much practice; he just wasn't sure on how much energy he had left to spare. Kusuri was right when she had said he'd exhausted himself.

Particles of light shimmered into existence near her hands, and even before it began to take form, he knew what was coming.

'Shit!' He tipped backwards and let himself fall within his own shadow. Once in the black confines, his body righted itself, similar to when resurfacing within a pool, and he reached upwards to the door of light above him.

It was all one smooth motion, as if falling from one story to the next, but he made it.

Emerging from Issei's shadow, his hands wrapped onto the back of the other boys shirt, and he violently threw the two of them off to the side. It was just in the nick of time as well; buried into the street a good 3 feet, was a pike of light, with what he could make out to be serrated edges.

"She really isn't holding back is she?" Kosuke said quite unnerved by the sight.

"And just who the hell are you, when did you- I swear I was only fighting one devil." The woman- _fallen angel if Rias' description was anything to go off of-_ looked on in confusion.

"Kosuke, how did you get here!" Issei trained his frantic gaze onto his friend.

"And what the hell happened to your eyes!" Kosukes mind was on so many other things at once, that he barely even registered the crazed rant his friend found himself in. His immediate focus at least, was the spear they had narrowly avoided, and the woman who had thrown it.

This close up, he noticed she had some really dark circles beneath her eyes; it was really detracting from the beautiful mature woman he found himself in dire straights with.

It looked like she hadn't slept in days.

But that wasn't too important right now.

After all there was a reason he had jumped in the fray.

"Kosuk-" Issei's rushed and frantic tone reached him, but the other boy quickly cut him off with an irritable "hold on!".

It was at that same second that Issei found himself standing in the dark. His body had been laying before and in the confusion he now found himself in, he fell over trying to right his balance.

Kosuke had no trouble at first, but it wasn't long after that the exhaustion hit him, and he found himself fighting to not fall flat on his face. He now joined the floor with Issei; on his hands and knees wheezing for breath and a hot flash running through his body. His lungs felt like powder, and his body felt weak.

'Shit!' It was only now when he needed to use his sacred gear most he started tanking on empty.

Taking a good 30 seconds to gather himself, Kosuke slowly lifted himself into a standing and watched as Issei did the same.

"Look, Issei." Taking a second to swallow and breathe, he tried to get his panting under control. "I don't know how long it'll take for h-"

A shin buried itself into his stomach and sent him hurling through a wall.

His mind was in a disarray, his nerves weren't quite firing correctly and his senses struggled to record the situation. He tried lifting his head but immediately regretted it as his balance was nonexistent.

His forehead was hot, and he could feel the blood pulsing behind his eyes. It was hard to breathe and bright dots flickered in his window of vision like glitter. Black began to encroach on the edges of his vision, and it wasn't the kind of black he was comfortable with.

'Oh fuck.' he needed to focus on something fast otherwise he'd pass out and be done for.

He could still hear the remains of the concrete wall - _that he had been fucking thrown through!-_ crumbling. He could hear the strange groaning sounds emitting from his chest. He sounded like a zombie or something. He flexed his fingers and felt the concrete dust surrounding him everywhere. The adrenaline racing through his system kept him from feeling the brunt of the pain, but there was still a deep ache that he could feel damn near in the marrow of his bones.

His hair was splayed out across his face so he couldn't exactly see, but the taste of copper and the smell of iron definitely alerted him to blood.

It took him a good few minutes before he was able to move his whole body. Pushing his body into a crouch, he surveyed the damage done to his body. Everything seemed to still work and function, he was a little sore but that was to be expected. He was bleeding from the nose, a lot, but other than that he was set to go.

He just had to get to Issei.

Walking out to where he originally jumped, he found a large hole in the floor that descended three floors. Down there he could see Issei taking a nasty beating from the fallen angel. Thoughts of the woman brought back memories of being pierced through the stomach.

'That definitely takes someone out of the fight.' He unconsciously thought, wincing slightly as the lady hurled Issei threw the air like a rag doll.

Wait, take out of the fight? Now that the thought was there, he was starting to roll with it. The basis for a plan began forming even without him wishing.

The huge drop to a floor unlit by any source of light, a huge shadow on its own, the dark pillars that shot up like weeds throughout each floor, speed, trajectory, piercing power, factors quickly fell into place like a puzzle that solved itself.

'Its beyond fucking crazy but…. I've got nothing else to try, and I can't sit here watching Issei suffer anymore.' From his spot observing he saw the woman breathing heavily.

'She's tired, she'll be distracted, this is my best chance.' He wasn't sure exactly if his plan would work, but dammit, he had total control over shadows, he could make it happen.

His plan banked on being able to carry inertia through the shadows. If he dropped down these three floors, and carried that momentum through another shadow right in front of the woman, would he be able to pierce her stomach with his bare hands and take her out of the fight.

It was a long shot, and it was beyond risky, but he couldn't think of much else. He only had one shot as well, so he had to make it count.

Perhaps he should practice on a concrete wall first?

'No, no definitely no.' He shook his head violently.

After all if it didn't work, worst casinario if he went after the purple haired woman, he'd only have to deal with jammed or possibly broken fingers. If he practiced on the wall first-

His eyes shifted to the concrete pillar beside him.

-an obliterated hand and a shattered femur.

Turning around he searched his surroundings for a possible weapon.

'There's rebar in concrete, maybe I can use a long piece of steel from the broken wall and use it.' Unfortunately, the exposed rebar was straight as could be.

There was no way for him to break it and use it as a spear. And unfortunately for him also, all the rocks and hunks of concrete were either far too large to actually carry, or too delicate to pierce with. It would just disintegrate in his hands.

A pained scream from Issei made Kosuke whip his head back at the hole he was supposed to be surveying through.

'Shit, there's no more time!' He realized.

A grimace on his face as he was being forced to make a hasty decision that could easily end in failure; he couldn't ignore the situation any longer as the woman was placed squarely in front of a pillar.

With nothing on his mind but the single task, he visualized every aspect of the process. He saw his body performing the actions, he imagined the end result, he imagined what it would feel like to connect the two windows together like a portal.

Raising his right hand up to the ceiling, he made his hand as flat as possible, before tipping over the side and letting gravity take him the 45+ feet below.

Wind whipped past his ears, and he was fucking terrified. Fear gripped his heart at the all too real thought of hitting the ground and not passing through. But he pushed through with the image in his head.

When he saw the black floor morph into a window of light, with his enemy on the other side, he knew it would work. He didn't let himself believe that it wouldn't. He visualized piercing his enemy and downing her just as much as he focused on the actual carrying of momentum.

He shot out of the pillar sideways and pierced her stomach like he expected. However his speed was more than he had anticipated and he planted his feet on the ground to steady himself. Her body hit his and was flush against his own as the momentum carried the two of them, Kosuke braking and sliding more than 20 feet across the floor.

Finally everything came to a stop.

Issei stared on in some strange mixture of horror and surprise, confusion, delight, and relief? His face had twisted and filtered through so many emotions that Kosuke couldn't quite figure it out.

"Hey, what are you-" A loud wet cough interrupted Kosuke; mainly because of the blood that sprayed onto his back.

And that's when he fully took stock of the situation.

His entire arm, all the way up to his bicep was buried inside of her. The two of them were so close that her hair fell into his own. Her head rested on his shoulder, and he felt her shudder, before all her weight finally transferred to him. Her legs had given out, and Kosuke reacted by grabbing her waist and steadying her.

She began shivering- no. _He_ began shivering violently. His eyes widened to full capacity.

"U- uhh - uh." His voice began to quiver slightly and his mouth tried to form words, yet only choked sounds came out.

Holy shit . . . What the fuck had he just done?

Her blood began spreading rapidly, covering parts of his clothing and spilling all over the floor like a paint bucket toppling over. He was hot, she was too warm. He needed to get away.

There was a disgusting squelching noise as he pulled his arm free. Her body fell and hit the ground hard. His hands shot out to grab her, but then he quickly retracted both.

Her blood covering his arm was warm. Too warm. It was so warm that the cold couldn't pierce it.

It was warm . . . too warm, and thick too. It was sticky and no matter how much of the substance dripped on the floor, there still seemed to be a very thick layer around his right arm.

It . . . it was way too warm. He didn't enjoy being this warm. He prefered the cold.

This . . . this was far too much for him.

Once he stopped looking at his arms and focused a bit more downward, he took notice of the lady.

She, just like the other fallen angel he had met and pretty much all the female devils thereafter, was beautiful. And yet her body betrayed that image as he couldn't decide between hot and beautiful how to describe her entirety. Her body was damn near _sinful_. She had curves for days, and mile long legs that she did not hesitate to put on display. Her tight skirt suit made sure to show the wide hips and thin waist she had somehow managed to achieve. Slits in the side of the skirt showed the greatest set of thighs he'd seen in a while. _There was a gaping red hole in her stomach_. Her bust was outrageous, easily rivaling Akeno's. It was almost unsightly how large they were. He wouldn't even try and figure out the cup size.

He saw Issei cautiously shuffling forward off to his left.

Her body was something else, and there just had to be some magic that helped her achieve it, because no women, model, pornstar or anything of the sort had managed her proportions. And when he looked at her face, she was a mature beauty. Absolutely stunning, and yet . . . she appeared to be crying.

Why was she crying?

Why was she even-

His knees gave way to the crushing weight.

"I- Im Im I- Im s-so sorry, I-I I didn't know that-" He choked hard on his words, and his body was racked with tremors as he watched tears slide down her face even further.

He should've known the outcome, he couldn't act surprised now. A blow like this, you couldn't just walk away from. It took you out of the fight for sure, but it took you out permanently.

Fallen Angel or not, he didn't want to murder anybody.

Two hands seized him by the shoulders and yanked him up and tore him away from the sight.

He found himself sitting up against a pillar farther away right next to Issei. It took him a few minutes but he got his emotions under control. He didn't look a complete mess now.

The two sat there in silence for a while, before Issei finally did the brave thing and broke the silence.

"You know, after all this . . . I think I'm gonna watch some porn."

Silence.

Kosuke should've been angry that Issei had the fucking gal to bring up something as irrelevant as that right now. He should've, but for some reason . . . he started to laugh.

"Hahahaha," It was a loud laugh that shook his shoulders and closed his eyes; why the hell was he laughing?

"We narrowly escaped death just right now, and thats whats on your mind, jacking off?"

"Well, you know." Issei started off sheepishly before resolve entered his voice. "It is a good stress reliever."

"Hmm, you are right about that." Kosuke figured slipping into casual conversation would help ease and calm him down, and it was definitely working.

He just tried to ignore the dying woman who lay 20 feet away.

"You know, I've got some DVDs at home." Issei offered.

Kosuke turned to him with a small frown on his face.

"And why would you buy those when that stuff is free online?" Kosuke asked with scepticism clear in his voice.

"Im telling you, a lot of these movies go onto the sites with monthly subscriptions. This isn't anything you'll find on just normal viewing sites. There is a reason why we pay."

Kosuke sat there for a moment, thinking about it a bit.

"Can I go to your place after school tomorrow and borrow one then?" He finally said with a straight face.

"Yeah, that's fine."

The two settled into an unnerving silence.

The conversation had managed to get him under control and thinking logically again, but there was still the problem of the woman who was again, dying on the floor.

"Let's head to my house, Issei." Kosuke said as he rose from the floor and began walking towards the girl.

"Kosuke, what are you doing?" Issei said with a hard edge to his voice once Kosuke had neared the fallen angel woman.

"Treating her." Tearing a long strip from her suit he began wrapping it into a makeshift bandage of sorts.

"The hell you aren't." There was definitely some heat in his tone now.

"Look, from what Rias told us this morning, we seem to be in this weird fragile truce. Like some sort of cold war. Actions like these might just be the end of us. Not to mention we don't know why she actually attacked us." Kosuke tried to explain as he finished the quick patch up job, enough so she wasn't bleeding all over him anymore. "I for one, am not the type to jump to conclusions too quickly, neither of us know the full story, so I'll ask when she wakes up."

"When she wakes up? She's clearly gonna-." Issei's anger died down and now he was just tired and miserable, no fight was left in him. "She tried to kill us, you know."

"But she didn't succeed, did she? Simple as that." Bending down, he scooped up her unconscious body and turned back towards Issei.

"Do you know how to stitch together a wound?"

"No." Issei answered.

"Hmm," Kosuke walked over to Issei's side and reached him. "We can ask google about it when we get to my house."

"Before we go though," Kosuke turned his head to the side and focused on a pillar not to far away from them.

Issei followed his eyes and looked on in surprise when another Kosuke emerged from the shadows.

The two Kosukes nodded to one another before the 2nd disappeared into the shadows.

"What the hell was that?" Issei asked bewildered.

Kosuke just smiled slightly.

"I'll tell you about it tomorrow, for now we've got one last jump for the night."

Issei nodded and placed his hand on Kosuke's shoulder, already knowing what to do.

* * *

When Kosuke surfaced in his living room, he was somewhat expecting Kusuri to be there, but he sure as hell hadn't anticipated Rias being there.

She stood up from the chair she was sitting at.

"Kosuke, where have you be- Issei, youre- you two are hurt, who is-" Questions played on her tongue and for a second she didn't seem to know what to do with her arms.

WIthin seconds though, her calm orderly facade reemerged.

"I'll explain everything a little bit later, but do you think you can heal her, and perhaps Issei too?" Kosuke asked.

"What about you?" Her voice was stern, no doubt she had realized who the woman was, or rather what she was.

"I wasn't hurt nearly as much as they were, if you really want to, you can get to me last."

Rias looked like she wanted to say something, however, out of respect or perhaps something else, she chose not to. Only stepping forward to take the woman out of his hands.

He saw her eyes linger on the wound he had inflicted and of course, his right arm, but she didn't say anything and disappeared behind the hallway with Issei in tow.

Looking at the kitchen, he saw the garlic bread had been taken out of the oven, and the mess he had made earlier had been cleaned.

"Kusuri." He spoke her name softly.

"Yes?" Came her equally soft response as she appeared before him.

"Did you clean the kitchen for me, and take out the bread?" He asked.

"Yes."

Kosuke managed the barest hint of a smile.

"Thank you, Kusuri. You've been nothing but a big help." Kosuke said and reached to pat the top of her head.

Once he was reminded of the sickening amounts of blood that clung to his right arm, he lowered it.

Kusuri took the initiative and moved forward, taking his left hand and resting the palm on the crown of her head. Eyes closed and waiting expectantly, Kosuke thought she looked way too cute and made sure to pat her head.

The sweet smile he got in return really warmed his heart.

What he really needed now though, was a shower.

Waking down the hall, he ripped the remnants of his tattered shirt off and stuffed it into a trashcan. His shorts and socks would be sure to follow after he got in the bathroom.

As he walked into the bathroom, a quick glance at the clock on the wall told him the time.

"10:23, huh?"

Damn if today hadn't been a long day.

* * *

"I think you should get to her first, Rias." She heard a familiar voice say from the doorway.

A quick glance over her shoulder confirmed it was Kosuke. She had thought he was getting in the shower though.

Getting up from her crouched position where she had been treating Issei, she got ready for what was no doubt gonna be trouble.

"Issei, Think you can leave the room for a sec?" She asked, although Issei could tell it was more like a command.

Rising without a word, he walked past the two and closed the door behind him.

The guest bedroom was left in complete silence for a few seconds.

"I won't treat her."

"Why not?"

Rias sighed heavily at his response.

"Do you really need to ask me that?" She really didn't want to deal with this right now.

She had only gotten about an hour to rest before waking up again. And of course, the bright idea to go to Kosukes house hit her, so she couldn't just stay in the club room after that.

When she got there, no one was home. Rias figured at most she would just drill him about his whereabouts earlier, and then she could go back to sleep. He couldn't be gone for too long, there was food on the stove after all.

Glancing off to her side, she observed the Fallen Angel she had admittedly dumped onto the bed without much care or thought.

She was most assuredly not prepared to handle the situation Kosuke had managed to find himself in.

Today had been a very long day, and she doubted it would end anytime soon.

"Aren't you the one who told me were in some sort of shaky ceasefire as it is." His words drew her eyes back to the boy. "Wouldn't this be grounds for retribution or something. I find it hard to believe they would just let this slide."

"You don't need to worry about that."

Somehow the situation felt a little comical. It was like watching your dog or cat bring in a dead animal from outside and drop it off by your feet.

If she was being honest, she was fighting the urge not to celebrate. She didn't exactly know the entire situation, but she did know that Kosuke was the one to land such a devastating blow. And for a rookie servant not even a week into the job yet, he had been able to fatally wound a superior opponent.

Just the thought alone managed to bring the corners of her mouth into a pleased smile.

Luckily his eyes weren't focused on her face, so he didn't catch her slip.

His eyes were glued onto the growing red spot on the fallen angels stomach, obviously he was worried about something.

"If you're worried about the mess, dont worry, Ill take care of it." Rias offered pleasantly.

"That's not what I'm worried about." Kosuke said slightly exasperated.

She watched him as he walked closer to the bed, a grocery bag in his hand that she hadn't noticed before. Hell she didn't remember him coming in with it either.

"Do you hate them?" He asked.

"Hate them?" That certainly erased the small smile that she had before.

She didn't exactly hate them . . . but she didn't care much for them either.

They were just. . . Fallen angels and their affairs didn't really register on her list of 'Things I Care About'.

It was similar to the way that if your country was at war with another, you don't really think about the casualties they suffer, or what crimes they might be suffering to.

If a country was bombed, you just kinda took it at face value, you didn't think about it nearly long enough to even question how the civilians felt.

It just didn't register, it was a thought that didn't even occur. She felt nothing to them.

She followed him with her head when he knelt by her side and tried putting some pressure on the wound.

She felt nothing but apathy, and even that attitude was better than most others. While she could certainly see the effects of the war and even live through it, constant reminders plaguing her very being through family or her own observations, her feeling were second hand in nature. Second hand accounts and observable reality based off actions that had taken place before she was born. She didn't fight, she hadn't lost anyone close to her. None of the hatred and grief that she knew plagued most others were existent in her.

None of that, she just didn't care for a single second.

* * *

"No I don't hate them." He heard her say.

Hands pressing against the sticky mess that clung to her clothes and spilled onto the bed, he tried desperately to get the blood to stop.

There was this fear simmering in his gut; the very real reality of his actions reaching its ultimate consequence made him sick. The anxiety reached its peak and he felt a hot flash run through him. His heart beat faster and he was feeling a little light headed. He was on the verge of hyperventilating as the crushing reality of what would most likely happen began weighing on him.

It almost felt like he had been thrown through a wall again.

He couldn't let this woman die in his house, he couldn't let her die whatsoever. He didn't want that weighing on his conscious. And while he had figured this was something he might just have to do one day, he hadn't expected it to happen so damned fast.

"Why won't you heal her then." He was more than a little surprised to realize none of the frustration managed to make it to his voice.

He sounded perfectly collected.

"When I healed you and Issei, I had to get naked and hold you the entire night. That's far too intimate a thing to do with her." Ria's said evenly.

He didn't know whether she said it as a cover for her just plain not wanting to help the woman, or if it was truly as simple as that. He was turned away from her, so he couldn't see her expression. Nonetheless, he sighed.

"You got any magic that'll work like anesthesia?" He asked tiredly.

Rias wanted to ask why, but upon seeing him reach into the grocery bag and pull out some thread, she knew what he wanted to do.

She . . . wasn't necessarily disappointed that he was going to try and save her, but a similar yet smaller emotion did appear before she squashed it.

"I can put her under a deeper sleep, and numb the area around the wound." She answered.

She wouldn't make things too difficult for him.

His eyes were tired, she could see it easily from this distance, yet, the warm smile he gave her after she agreed to help drove away any lingering feelings.

"I hope you'll stay for dinner."

* * *

He didn't know how the hell the kid did it, but it seemed that Kosuke had managed to clone himself.

Issei knew that his friend held a sacred gear, but no other knowledge than that. He'd have to ask him the next time he saw him.

Suddenly the door to his left opened and he saw Kosuke walk out with a towel wrapped around his waist.

Speak of the devil-

"Oh hey Issei, you can get in, I'll even give you one of my uniforms to wear back home."

Issei just blinked a bit, he was tired and he really didn't have the energy to interrogate Kosuke on second thought. He'd be told the next day either way.

Rising up from the floor where he had been sitting, he trudged past the blue eyed boy into the bathroom which surprising didn't have any steam wafting throughout.

"Oh and Issei."

Not even bothering to turn around or stop, Issei's hand twisted the shower knob to what he figured would be a comfortable temperature.

Within a few seconds of letting his hand run under the current, the water began warming up.

That was certainly nice.

"Yeah." He finally answered.

"You wanna stay over for just a bit longer and have some dinner."

The water was a bit too hot so he turned the knob down a bit.

Food . . . certainly sounded good right about now.

"Yeah."

"Alright I'll leave your clothes on the toilet and bring a towel for you."

The door closed shut after that; Issei lazily stripped before stepping under the jet.

* * *

He already knew the night would be long before his clone had entered his room while he was hanging, and explained the situation.

The woman was fine, and Rias would be staying for dinner.

Issei would be staying over for dinner as well.

And most importantly, the thing he had forgotten up until this point-

His aunt was coming home today.

Fuck . . .

Pulling some pants on and a random long sleeve he had found in his closet, he prepared himself for the next event.

He only had one more scene before he could finally go to fucking bed.

"Wish me good luck." He whispered bitterly in a small attempt at humor.

"Good luck." Came Kusuri's soft voice.

He didn't even know she was there; turning to the voice he saw her sitting criss cross on his bed, playing with some blonde porcelain doll in a light blue gown.

Turning around again, he figured she had materialised just when he asked for luck.

He gave her a half hearted thanks before leaving the room and closing the door behind him.

The room was thrown into darkness, the shadows instantly covered every object it could, halting at the rays of light periodically spaced throughout the room.

Kusuris golden eyes remained open, seemingly glowing within the dark.

"Sais."

* * *

The food had been given some time to reheat on the burner, the bread was doing similar within the oven.

Issei was out of the shower and dressed appropriately, and both he and Rias sat at the table. There was a magical barrier over the guest bedroom which would dissuade his Aunt from trying to enter. Kosuke had almost finished setting the table when he heard his Aunt pull into the driveway.

"I forgot to tell you guys but someone else will be eating with us even if it is rather late." Kosuke informed them unapologetically as he set food on everyone's plates and placed them on the table.

The keys made a loud sound within the lock as Kosuke finished placing the last plate down.

"Perfect timing." He muttered under his breath as he walked back into the kitchen to turn out all the unnecessary lights.

"Hey, Kosuke." Issei ignored the bags in her hand as he checked her out from his seat. "Who're your two friends?"

She had a lovely voice, and her demeanor just screamed dignity and grace. She was fairly tall, taller than Rias and Akeno easy, and her chest was nothing to scoff at either. Her face looked strikingly similar to Kosuke's, and it seemed like blue eyes ran in the family.

"They're club members, we had a meeting up until just a little while ago and I asked if they wanted anything before they went home." He heard Kosuke answer as he went up to hug her.

Damn! Issei wanted to be the one with huge tits being squished into his chest!

With them standing so close to one another, he realized they looked pretty much exactly the same. Their eyes and hair were the only real difference. While Kosukes eyes appeared a much darker shade of blue due to the almost half lidded gaze he slipped into on default, the other woman had much wider eyes, without much of a shadow falling on her iris', they appeared a medium shade of blue.

Sure whenever Kosuke smiled or laughed, kinda like now as he joked around a bit with the woman, his eyes lightened up to a similar blue, but it was only flashes. This woman held a continuous glint in her gaze.

Her hair was also a light blonde color, he noted once everyone had sat down and began eating. She had probably bleached it as he could tell from the highlights in Kosukes hair, he had natural black hair, she probably did under that dye as well. She did look striking with blonde hair though, he would readily admit it. With her blue eyes and soft facial features she was quite the charming older woman.

It looked like Rias and Akeno had some competition lurking around.

"Man," He grouched suddenly as he turned his head to his left and leered at the other boy, before turning his attention back to the main attraction. "Why didn't you tell me you had such a hot older sister."

Kosuke didn't know how to respond for a few seconds, Rias laughed in her hand in manner similar to Akeno, she must've known who the woman actually was.

"Idiot!" Kosuke was crossed between embarrassment, disgust, and anger and didnt know which emotion to accurately convey; his face twitched between them in indecision. "Thats my Aunt!"

"And don't think I didn't see you either." His face dropped embarrassment and just focused of disgust and irritation. "If you can't mind your manners just look down at the plate."

"Aunt?" Issei's shock seemed to amuse Rias even further.

"Oh I don't mind Kosuke," She spoke up, placing one arm under her chest and the other to cover her mouth as she looked away with a blush she had totally come out of her ass with. "I'm just glad to see even at this age I can still attract younger men."

'What kinda bullshit is that woman!' Kosuke didn't know if she was trying to tease Issei or him!

"Hmph." Looking away with a nasty smirk on his face, he decided to knock her down a peg. "He's got three times the hormones of the average teen, it isn't surprising he'd be attracted to old ladies like you."

The blush was gone and so was the shy demeanor, in an instant she had her hands placed on the table and had leaned menacingly over her nephew.

"What'd you call me, asswipe!" Issei was too focused on the swaying of her chest after the rapid movement to question the complete 180.

"Old~" He sung with that devious smirk on his face still, refusing to even look in her direction, shoulders shaking in a barely contained laugh. "Have you gotten to the age were even your hearings started to go bad, I thought you still had a couple of years."

"Are you sure the two of you aren't siblings?" Rias asked with nothing but good humor, a bright smile on her face. "You guys sure do act like it."

The woman sat down in her seat with a long sigh before fixing her hair slightly and calming down.

"Well, we're only about 7 years apart, and we grew up together, so we do kinda act like it." She answered honestly, gathering some pasta on her fork and shooting off a snarky remark before eating. "If it weren't for this brat and his big mouth though."

"You know you love me, Sayuri~"

"Love you enough to smother you in your sleep, yeah."

Issei could see from the similar smiles on both of their faces that they were just having fun teasing one another.

Rias huffed out a large sigh that was completely unlike her and seemingly deflated in her seat. "I wish my older sibling was as cool as you."

Ah, the great Devil himself. He was probably a total hard ass, Rias probably didn't get along with her brother whatsoever.

"Whats your brother like?" Completely oblivious was Kosukes aunt.

"I don't even feel like talking about it." It must've been pretty bad if she got that exhausted just thinking about him.

"Sayuri . . . Yuri Sayuri, Sayuri Yuri." Issei had figured out her name and the little quirk too it after Kosuke had addressed her, testing it out on his tongue. "What were your parents thinking?"

Now Sayuri deflated and looked just as worn out as Rias.

"I don't know what his grandparents were thinking."

Dinner became a quiet affair after that, the silence lasting a good 5 minutes as everyone truly began devouring the food Kosuke had prepared.

It was nice seeing so many people enjoying something he made.

"Hey, you two." His aunt looked pointedly at his two friends. "It's like, 11. Are your parents alright with you being out this late?"

"Uh." Looks like Issei was a terrible liar.

"Of course." Rias said immediately.

"Hmm." She peered a little closer at Issei, obviously suspicious.

"Look, If you don't believe him, why don't you just believe me, I'm pretty trustworthy." Rias covered for the boys slip up.

'Wow,' He was actually a little amazed at the sheer audacity; there was no chance in hell his Aunt would take that as a solid reason, Rias hadn't even really tried at lyin-

"Oh ok, that makes perfect sense." Sayuri Immediately responded, calmly eating some more food after that.

'Wait, how could she have possibly . . .' Kosuke was at a complete loss for words.

'The girl used magic to brainwash the woman into obeying her will.' Kusuri communicated with him.

Kosukes chest stopped for a couple seconds before his breathing resumed, even if it was a bit shaky after that.

He looked down and focused on his food and continued eating. He didn't trust his face not to betray the anxiety that had suddenly gripped him.

Rias had bent his Aunts will right in front of him, and he didn't notice. His aunt surely hadn't noticed and neither did Issei.

It was an incredibly valuable and dangerous skill she had. Especially if Kusuri had been the only one to detect it.

The simple fact brought some worries into his mind. What if everytime he disagreed with Rias, or didn't want to do something she had asked of him, she just hypnotized him into thinking he wanted to do it or agreed with her. After all he wouldn't realize that his choice had been taken away from him, it would feel like he made the choice himself.

It was entirely possible that he had refused Rias multiple times and she just used her magic to alter his will.

Braving the risk, he glanced up at her. When she noticed his eyes linger on her face, she smiled at him. He looked down at his plate again.

The gesture didn't bring him any joy, after all it was completely possible for her to turn him into a complete puppet without any freedom of choice.

It wasn't very long after that that everyone had finished eating and his Aunt had offered to take care of the dishes.

Issei had waved his farewell at the door and parted knowing he'd see him again the next morning. Rias was also heading out, she would be escorting the boy so she could finish with Issei's injuries.

She . . . didn't know why exactly, but at some point, Kosuke had refused to make any eye contact with her, and closed himself off. She had originally thought he was just tired, but he hadn't showcased that same behaviour with Issei or his Aunt.

"Kosuke, is everything alright?" She asked with sincerity, hoping maybe he'd say something.

No luck as he still averted his eyes.

"Yeah, I'm just really tired and worn out."

"Oh ok" She responded with a small voice that wasn't quite her.

The door closed softly and left her on the dark cold street to follow after Issei with worry on her mind.

* * *

The devils little sister . . . She was akin to royalty wasn't she. That meant it was only natural to get whatever she wanted.

Kosuke rolled onto his other side in bed.

He didn't want to think about her along those lines, but he couldn't exactly ignore it either.

It had been a long day and he couldn't possibly imagine it getting any longer.

It was 11:34pm, and unfortunately for the boy, he'd be having a hard time sleeping that night.

* * *

 **A.N.** Ok one more chapter to go and we'll finally begin the first arc. That's where the action really kicks in. This chapter came out to be 51 pages and 17+k words. There was a ton of stuff that I wanted to get through in this chapter as well as the next, so the next chapter might be around this length as well, hopefully it won't take me nearly as long to finish it though. After chapter 6 is released I'll start publishing 10 to 12 page chapters with shorter intervals between updates. No promises though because I'm terrible at managing projects.

Kosuke traveled 1000 km which is about 621 miles. To put that in perspective I'll use my state California to represent it. It's the same as going from San Diego all the way up to Red Bluff. That's about 634 miles. Red Bluff is a 2 hour drive from Sacramento or 131 miles. So it's the equivalent of starting close to the border of California and Mexico and ending up well past the capitol, way up in north california. That's about a 9 and a half hour drive without traffic.

May seem a bit unrealistic, but I wanted to convey just how limitless Kosuke's Sub Species of Night Reflection is. The only thing really holding him back from throwing himself halfway across the globe with but a thought and a snap of his fingers, is reserves(does he have enough in the tank to get him that far, or will he pass out and die in a desert in the middle of china) and if he truly thinks he can (magic is pretty much only mental, so you can do anything with it).

Another big thing about this story you'll start noticing in this chapter. Issei. I can't stand that Issei's only goal was a harem. Every waking moment of his life was him being a pervert, the dude couldn't be serious even for life and death battles. It was kinda funny at first, but it lost its novelty fairly quickly. NO ONE and I mean no one in this story will be so one dimensional. There's a reason for the pacing of this story. So you'll notice a little bit of a change in Issei this chapter in terms of realizing that he can actually focus on his own self instead of perving out, and that he actually didn't care for the gymnastic captains feelings. I think everyone will be glad to see progress and will hope to see more transformation from the guy.

Im also sure some of you might ask, why Rias would ever let the person who nearly killed her servants to sleep in one of said servant's homes, and that will be answered a bit in the next chapter.

Also if you're following the flow of the story, it's only tuesday, however because I don't feel like going back and doing fat corrections, lets just say for the sake of the story, Issei and Raynare's little date happened on a monday night, thus making this wednesday.


End file.
